Since I did such a great job predicting the outcome of this year’s UK general election, getting it only 100% wrong, I don’t see how I can justify withholding my insights on next year’s US presidential election from the public.

Democratic candidates:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: 99% favorite for the nomination.  The other 1% is reserved in case she gets sick, is caught in a real scandal, or has a religious awakening and drops out of the race to devote herself to Hare Krishna or whatever.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders: A vote for Mr Sanders is a signal to the Democratic Party that there is a room to the left of the positions they’ve been taking lately, and so I hope he gets a lot of them.  But I’m pessimistic.  For one thing, that disrupted rally in Seattle last week made him look like the teacher who can’t control the class, the worst possible optic for a presidential candidate.  That’s going to stick with him.  Added to his other limits, it makes me doubt whether he’ll still be the clear second-place Democrat come January.

Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley: The rationale for his campaign was “In case something happens to Hillary,” and his promise was going to be to do for the USA as president what he did for Baltimore as mayor.  But then Freddie Gray happened, and the country realized what he did for Baltimore.  And when he was targeted for disruption, he was humiliated even more thoroughly than Mr Sanders.  Honestly, it’s just embarrassing having him around at this point.

Former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chaffee: Not exactly an electoral powerhouse, but at this point the likeliest to step up in case something happens to Ms Clinton.

Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb: I love the guy, but he has no chance.  A former Reagan administration Navy secretary whose c.v. includes authorship of an article titled “Women Can’t Fight” has zero chance in as Democratic primary where the frontrunner is a woman.

Republican candidates:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker: likeliest nominee; if I were laying odds, I’d give him a 90% chance of emerging as the Republican standard-bearer next fall.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio: running for president rather than betting his career on an uphill reelection bid, as then-North Carolina Senator John Edwards did in the 2004 cycle.  The old stereotype is that Democrats get in trouble about sex and Republicans get in trouble with money; as Mr Edwards’ career was ultimately destroyed by his sexual indiscretions, Mr Rubio’s history of personal financial troubles may well prove his undoing.  But in the meantime, he may well catch the same kind of wave that made Mr Edwards a major player in the 2004 Democratic race.  And if something goes wrong with Mr Walker’s campaign, he may well be the one who will step into his place.  So a 5% chance of winning the nomination.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul: Son of former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who had some horrible ideas and some pretty good ones.  Dr Paul isn’t his father, though- he has most of the horrible ideas, but none of the good ones.  If he finds an issue that Republican voters care about, and Mr Walker and Mr Rubio both implode, he may well get a second look from voters, but that’s a pretty unlikely set of events. A 2% chance of winning.

Ohio Governor John Kasich: On paper, the logical front-runner.  A former chairman of the Budget Committee in the US House of Representatives, Mr Kasich was last year reelected governor of Ohio by almost a 2-1 margin.  Ohio is a swing state that has gone for the Democrats in each of the last two elections, but no Republican has ever been elected president without Ohio and none is likely to be any time soon.  Despite his popularity in Ohio, Mr Kasich is not universally beloved, and he was late to start putting his presidential campaign together.  His support may rise above the 1% of voters who have been telling pollsters he is their first choice, he may even mount the kind of insurgency that gave John McCain the second place in the 2000 Republican race and therefore the favorite for their 2008 nomination.  Maybe a 1% chance of pulling out the nomination if there is a series of surprises.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: A loudmouth jerk who gained a national following among fans of loudmouth jerkdom by publicly berating some public school teacher.  But people who are looking for a loudmouth jerk have Mr Trump, who greatly outclasses Mr Christie in that calling.  Like Mr Kasich, may have a 1% chance if there is a series of surprises, but some of those surprises would have to be pretty big.

All of the rest put together have about a 1% chance of qualifying for the general election ballot, but I do have opinions about them:

New York real estate heir-turned-reality TV star Donald Trump: May well continue leading the polls throughout the silly season of the 2015, but will probably vanish without a trace by the time the voting starts.  His appeal is based on a mixture of entertainment value and name recognition.  His current levels of support are probably very close to the total number of Republicans willing to back him for the nomination, a number which might make him a giant in a seventeen candidate field but which will shrink him severely once the caucuses and primaries concentrate voters behind Mr Walker and perhaps Mr Rubio.  Besides, if Mr Trump does well, New York real estate heir-turned-reality TV star Robert Durst might think he has a mandate to run.  At least Mr Durst could promise to save money from the defense budget by discontinuing drone strikes and carrying out targeted killings personally.

Former Florida Governor John Ellis Bush: Probably has a lower ceiling of support than does Mr Trump.  The fact that Mr Rubio, a fellow Floridian who began as Mr Bush’s protege, has raised millions of dollars for his campaign shows that many of his longtime financial backers are signaling their reluctance to back a campaign to create a third President Bush.  And despite nearly universal name recognition, Mr Bush has yet to break 20% support in any poll.  Unless something changes dramatically, the J. E. Bush presidential campaign will probably be remembered as a vanity project and an embarrassment to the Bush dynasty.

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson: Tremendous success raising money from small donors, but a sleepy TV demeanor that raises the question of how he could stay awake long enough to perform a brain operation.  Dr Carson won’t win the nomination, and unless he perks up while he’s on the air he won’t get a deal from talk radio or cable TV.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz: The story about him as a Harvard Law student trying to organize a study group consisting only of students with undergraduate degrees from “major Ivies”* always reminds me of this guy.  But Mr Cruz is very very smart, well-connected, and he does know how to appeal to Republican base voters.  He may very well make an impact.  Still, he is no likelier than Dr Carson to be nominated.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee: Could have been nominated if he had followed up his strong 2008 run with a campaign in 2012.  This time, though, he’s running, not as last time’s runner-up, but as the author of a book called God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy.  In other words, he isn’t running for president, he’s trying to land a showbiz gig as a cartoon hillbilly.  

Former tech executive Carly Fiorina: I read The Economist when Ms Fiorina was boss of Hewlett-Packard.  David Packard, one of the heirs of the founders, is a Classics PhD who uses his inheritance to underwrite the field.  As a classicist myself, I followed the news about that company with attention.  If she does for the USA what she did for Hewlett-Packard, Ms Fiorina will earn the eternal gratitude of al-Qaeda.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum: Mr Santorum has a flair for logic exercises and an interest in people who work with their hands, but he also has a brittle, dry personality that explains why he lost his Senate seat in a landslide a decade ago and hasn’t been a serious contender for public office since.

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: When one of the felony charges pending against him were dismissed earlier this year, Mr Perry should have celebrated that as the making of a good year.  Instead he chose to wage a presidential campaign that is already in a state of collapse.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham: Relentlessly hawkish foreign policy stance might have sold with Republican voters as recently as 2008, but not likely to attract much support this time around.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal: Unpopular in his home state and unknown outside it.

Former New York Governor George Pataki: Waited much too long to run- might have had an outside chance twenty years ago.  Could still have a good run somewhere along the line if relatively moderate voters start showing up in Republican primaries, but no way the base will rally around him.

Former Virginia Governor James Gilmore: Forgotten even in his home state.

*”Major Ivies” is a term people who went to Princeton use to bracket Princeton with Harvard and Yale; people who went to the other five Ivy League schools do not recognize this distinction, and people who went to Harvard and Yale don’t, either.