Leaders | America’s presidential race

Donald Trump is very likely to be the Republican nominee

So his chances of re-entering the Oval Office are uncomfortably high

May 25th 2023

A glitch-plagued chat with Elon Musk, live on Twitter, is an unconventional way to launch a presidential campaign. But with the entry of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, the race for the Republican nomination is now properly under way. The first states will not vote until January. Primaries are hard to predict, because it is expensive to conduct enough high-quality polls of primary voters in the key states. But, with that disclaimer over, one candidate has a huge, perhaps insurmountable, lead: Donald Trump. Mr Trump thus has a real chance of becoming America’s next president. Betting markets put his odds of returning to the White House at one in three.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Seriously? Yes”