Ossoff turned into a surprisingly tough campaigner after a losing congressional race in 2017. He’s clobbering Perdue on ethics, and he created a priceless image debating an empty podium when Perdue refused to show up.

— Jennifer Rubin

The Democrats get the edge in my ranking just because the Republican Party in Georgia is in such self-destructive disarray; Perdue and Loeffler seem objectively bad at politics; and Trump is liable, even likely, to continue stewing about his loss there to the point where he actually damages GOP chances. I think that if Ossoff can’t win, nobody can.

— Eugene Robinson

She reinvented herself from mainstream Republican to MAGA devotee, and for what? Trump's attacks on his own party in Georgia are now forcing her to walk the line between alienating the country-clubbers she was supposed to appeal to in the first place and alienating the extremists she has spent the past months courting.

— Molly Roberts

I have to think that Georgia is still fundamentally a Republican state, at least for a while, and that the Atlanta suburbanites Trump bled out to the Democrats will circulate rightward now that Trump is gone. Perdue looks stronger than Loeffler, but at the end of the day, I think they both squeak it out.

— Megan McArdle

His ads have masterfully positioned him as an upbeat, positive and (disappointingly still necessary for a Black man) nonthreatening candidate in an election season where many voters are feeling tired of relentless negativity. Meanwhile, the “gotcha” videos Republicans have circulated of his sermons are more appealing than anything else, reminding voters of his religious bona fides and pointing out their own perfidy. In contrast, Warnock’s competition is a charmless robot who appears to have profited off of a pandemic that is hitting Georgians hard. And as a final point in Warnock’s favor: Who can resist that beagle?

— Christine Emba

It will be very hard for both Democrats to win runoffs in this (still) GOP-leaning state without Trump on the ballot to energize Democratic turnout. But if one is to prevail, Warnock might have a marginally better chance. He’s the one with the very slight edge in the polling averages. He faces Loeffler, who has never been elected statewide, having been appointed in 2019 to fill a vacancy. And she’s much more robotic and unlikable than the unctuously smooth Perdue.

— Greg Sargent

You can’t erase decades of hard-left remarks whether in interviews, speeches or sermons. My favorite? His comments on the “complex” legacy of Fidel Castro.

— Hugh Hewitt

Normally you’d expect him to lose in a Deep South state where the race card is being played. However, see my Ossoff comments. And Democrats genuinely feel they have momentum.

— Eugene Robinson

My ranking is all about the polls, combined with the fact that more GOP votes were cast in the first round as opposed to Democratic ones. But all of these candidates have so much baggage, and the craziness over Trump's claims that Georgia’s election was rigged could scramble the picture so much that I have the whole thing upside down!

— Charles Lane

My hunch is he pulls this one out, despite the questionable stock trades that prompted a Justice Department investigation. He has the power of incumbency and a family name that is a political brand in Georgia. (His cousin, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, was a two-term governor.)

— Karen Tumulty

Perdue is an incumbent Republican in a historically GOP state. Let’s not overthink it — he’s the most likely of the four to win his runoff.

— David Byler

The incumbent ran ahead of Trump in Atlanta’s affluent northern suburbs in November. That should be enough to give him a narrow win in January.

— Henry Olsen

Not surprisingly, the veteran is doing the best job of running hard and through the tape even though he is favored. Not one of the polls is taken seriously, and he knows his advantages are extraordinary. He will carry Loeffler along with him and is running against Ossoff/Warnock as one. Smart, disciplined campaign.

— Hugh Hewitt

I think there’s about a 20 percent chance Trump wins. There’s a 40 to 50 percent chance Biden wins and keeps the court at nine. And there’s a 30 to 40 percent chance he packs it to 11. So, doing some simple expected value math, we get .2(9) + .45(9) + .35(11) = 9.7

— David Byler

If Democrats retake the Senate, they will have a very good shot at adding four nominees to the court in order to flip it leftward. (Two won't quite undo the conservative majority.) Call it a 55 percent chance — so I think this time next year, the court will have 13 justices.

— Megan McArdle

Court-packing is much harder to pull off than the loose talk about it now implies. Democrats would probably have to wait until a bloody fight over the filibuster ends and until the court produces a ruling outrageous enough to trigger the politics.

— Charles Lane

Even if Biden and Democrats do win the White House and Senate, it’s easy to see them punting on court expansion during the first year. With Biden likely deciding he must be a post-election healer, he’ll be unlikely to take the court-expansion plunge as well.

— Greg Sargent

Biden has made it clear in the past that he is against expanding the court.

— Karen Tumulty

Whether or not the Senate majority shifts and whether or not President Trump is reelected, the Supreme Court will remain at nine. Expanding the court failed in 1937 because it was a radical, destabilizing notion. It would fail again for the same reasons.

— Hugh Hewitt

The situation amps up the passion on both sides, heading into the election, but everybody’s hair was on fire already, so what, really, is the difference?

— Eugene Robinson

Republicans are historically more motivated by the court wars than the left, and there’s a real risk Democrats or their fellow travelers in the media and entertainment industry will say stupid things about the nominee. On the other hand, Democrats might get more motivated if the court were 6-to-3 Republican appointees. That sort of power imbalance tends to be galvanizing, which is how we got the conservative legal movement in the first place.

— Megan McArdle

I have no idea. And they have no idea, either.

— Karen Tumulty

The open court seat helps Democrats, as the outpouring of grief and admiration for RBG — especially from women — would indicate. With abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act now really on the line, this may light a fire under Democrats’ irregular voters.

— Jennifer Rubin

Just look at the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into ActBlue’s coffers. Democrats, for whom Ginsburg’s survival was their only hope, need something to change if they’re going to secure their future; that’s a more powerful motivator than needing things to stay the same.

— Molly Roberts

Polling shows that most Americans don’t want someone to get rushed through in the homestretch of the presidential election. We don’t need to overthink this — if Republicans do something unpopular, it probably doesn’t help them hold power.

— David Byler

Trump is helped a bit, but it's mainly Senate Republicans who benefit. As members of the Judiciary Committee, Tillis and Ernst have a chance to raise their profiles and remind possible anti-Trump conservatives why a GOP Senate is important.

— Charles Lane

The short-term consequences favor the GOP — simply in that not acting to fill the vacancy would have led to a disgruntled base and an election wipeout for Republicans. Long-term, if the new court sticks to the Constitution, it should fade as the political football it has long been.

— Hugh Hewitt

Where the GOP really stands to benefit is from a potential Supreme Court decision invalidating who-knows-how-many mail votes and handing the election to Trump. Yes, it’s very plausible that this won’t happen. But it could — meaning only one party is in a position to get the ultimate boost from this outcome.

— Greg Sargent

The political impact will be a bit of a wash, but if Democrats and progressives go overboard in their attacks on the nominee, it could push non-progressives to turn out for Trump or reconsider Biden.

— Henry Olsen

This is a flier, but Rushing is a legally pedigreed, socially conservative woman from North Carolina, a swing state. Less than two years on the federal bench leaves a very small paper trail, too. She also would be the only evangelical Christian on the court, something that would energize that sizable portion of Trump’s base. Plus, she would be a huge surprise — and Trump always relishes that.

— Henry Olsen

I’m betting on Lagoa, because I suspect Trump won’t be able to resist trolling the left by nominating a conservative Hispanic woman.

— Megan McArdle

Lagoa offers a pandering opportunity Trump could hardly pass up — if she had been vetted for the job. But things need to move fast if Mitch McConnell is going to get to pack his court, and Barrett is reviewed and ready to be rocketed into the fray.

— Molly Roberts

It’s hard to imagine President Trump not nominating the candidate who is most favored by conservatives. He needs a truly extraordinary outpouring of energy from his base to win.

— Greg Sargent

Trump gets to nominate whomever he wants, and he sure seems set on Barrett.

— David Byler

Karen Tumulty

There is huge pressure for Biden to pick a woman of color, but if he decides to name a White running mate, I think she is the most obvious candidate.

Henry Olsen

Duckworth is the person to choose if one's aim is to find a Goldilocks candidate for the Democratic coalition. Veteran, amputee, progressive but not too much, person of color — she's the "just right" person. Which is exactly what Biden has been for his entire career.

Jennifer Rubin

The expectation may be for a Black VP, perfectly understandable given the moment in time and the salience of Black Lives Matter. That said, Duckworth checks all the boxes, with foreign policy credentials, military experience and the finesse to land punch after punch on Trump.

Hugh Hewitt

Republicans don’t fear Harris as much as Demings. A nearly three-decade career as a policewoman in Orlando means she knows crime up close. How much life experience can any candidate have beyond that many years on the front line of the rule of law? That’s the sort of profile that could peel off some traditional GOP voters, eager for the illusion of a centrist ticket. If Biden coupled Demings with a list of Supreme Court nominees of the center-left variety of Justice Elena Kagan, and a promise from Sen. Chuck Schumer to leave the filibuster in place, suddenly the prospect of four Democratic years doesn’t seem so dire to constitutionalists.

Charles Lane

"I'm not a communist," Bass announced this week, explaining her past trips to Cuba with the pro-Castro Venceremos Brigade. The California congresswoman seemed on her way to the nomination, but not anymore. Fair or not, a basic rule of politics is: If you're explaining, you're losing. If you're explaining that you're not a communist, you're really losing.

Molly Roberts

She would bring a lot in terms of vision to the ticket, but she wouldn’t bring a lot in terms of voters — at least, not voters Biden doesn’t already have on a lock. Her admirers should probably settle for being thankful about her influence on the presumptive nominee’s platform so far, and maybe for a plum Cabinet post down the line.

Greg Sargent

Why not Warren? Biden is reported to want a veep who won’t get distracted by petty politics from the epic challenges facing the country. Biden is also working to project his intentions for an ambitious, FDR-style presidency. Would anyone send a stronger message on both than Warren, who has offered one of the most searching structural economic critiques of anyone in the country, at a time when deep reform will be urgent? Yes, Biden advisers worry about giving Trump a target, but fear of Trump’s schoolyard taunts can’t possibly outweigh that self-assigned FDR-level imperative, can it?

Christine Emba

Unlikely, as Biden seems inclined to choose a Black woman specifically — but she’s still competent, she's still making policy, and she'd still be an asset.

Henry Olsen

Warren is the queen of the White woke warriors. Choosing her makes perfect sense in the current climate.

David Byler

It would be weird to see a vice-presidential candidate with no experience in elected office. But we already have a president who has no political experience of any kind, so why not?

Greg Sargent

Rice’s experience navigating Ebola as Barack Obama’s national security adviser is surely weighing on Biden. One can see Biden’s veep being tasked with the lead on coronavirus so Biden could focus on the economic crisis and staffing up the executive branch. Rice’s experience with pandemics would enable her to reassure the country in this role. And don’t overlook that Rice would likely shred Vice President Pence on the pandemic in the VP debate. Indicting Trump’s virus task force chief before the nation would double as a big takedown of Trump’s disastrous handling of the single biggest issue in this race.

Jennifer Rubin

While allies of other candidates have embarrassed themselves with sexist chatter, she has kept on message for Democrats. As Karen Bass’s star rose and then fell, Harris was looking once again like the front-runner.

David Byler

Biden is cautious and consensus-oriented. If he thinks Harris will help him a bit and cause minimal problems, he’ll probably pick her.

Christine Emba

She seems like the frontrunner. But Biden’s delays in choosing do make you wonder if something new has emerged that put previous certainties under doubt.

Megan McArdle

The main reason to pick Harris is that she’s been seasoned in a presidential campaign. The main reason not to pick her is that voters didn’t appear to like her all that well.

Hugh Hewitt

In the summer of 2017, Van Jones and I were discussing the Democrats’ rising stars at a festival in Central Park. I mentioned the very able junior senator and former attorney general of California, and the crowd broke into spontaneous, sustained applause. I’ve never forgotten that and doggedly stuck with Harris as the likely nominee through all of the preseason. She was fast out of the gate, but as has happened so often on the GOP side, the first time around a track sees many wheels come off many cars. Her flaws were managerial, not inherent. Team Biden doesn’t have to make the easy decisions hard, and she’s just too obvious a choice to pass by.

Karen Tumulty

Any way you look at it, the clearest path.

Molly Roberts

Hawley puts a younger face on old-school, clean-cut conservative appeal. He also adds a veneer of intellectualism to President Trump's style of populism, which runs almost only on id.

Charles Lane

This whole exercise, of course, presupposes that the U.S. political system will still exist in 2024.

Jennifer Rubin

The only plausible woman for the GOP, she was smart enough to leave before the serious debacles and scandals occurred.

Karen Tumulty

Everything she says or does these days seems to be about positioning.

Karen Tumulty

He was getting high marks from Republicans and Democrats early in the pandemic but has squandered his credibility. This is likely to haunt him for a long time.

Christine Emba

Carlson already has an enormous platform and broad name recognition plus buckets of funding and all the right contacts. He’s also been honing and audience-testing his message for years. (It looks as though he’s settled on economic populism with a healthy dash of racist fearmongering.) Besides, what does the Swanson heir really have to lose?

Charles Lane

I am putting Don Jr. in the lead based on his position in one of the few quasi-valid polls that have been done on GOP preferences for '24. If indeed the right wants a Trump dynasty, everyone else in the party will either have to get with the program — or get out.

Christine Emba

The Trump brand is taking a beating this year, but there are still true believers out there — and maybe even in 2024. In light of that knowledge, Trump Jr. is already forming himself into the second coming of his father — an avatar that’s even less refined, if that’s possible, but perhaps more attractive to his audience because of it.

Megan McArdle

The senators who want to run in 2024 are pretty clear. The governors, on the other hand, are a wild card, since your ability to run for president in 2024 is probably pretty tightly linked to your ability to control covid-19 in 2020. I’ve thus picked not the governors who seem most eager or well-positioned for a presidential run, but those who haven’t presided over some sort of covid disaster already or look set to do so within the near future.

Greg Sargent

Tom Cotton’s 2024 bid is already underway; he launched it with his wretched “Send In The Troops” opinion piece. Cotton probably didn’t expect majorities to side with the protesters and see them as fundamentally unthreatening, but this may be a longer game. A Trump loss will unleash tremendous rage and lust for revenge among the Trump base. Cotton can step up as the hero who will purge the GOP of all the quislings and cowards who refused to fully implement Trump’s agenda of authoritarian nationalist militarism. Fun times!

Greg Sargent

A Marco Rubio candidacy will present a conundrum. If Trump loses — and especially if Republicans lose the Senate — Rubio, who ran in 2016 as the face of young, open-minded conservatism but lost to Trump, can plausibly argue the GOP should have moderated on immigration to win over nonwhites and educated suburbanites rather than gone full ethno-nationalist. But Rubio has since sworn off his embrace of immigration reform to survive in Trump’s GOP. Could he find his way back to the old version of himself? Worth watching.

Karen Tumulty

His decision not to run for the Senate suggests he's making bigger plans for the long term.

Jennifer Rubin

He can claim to be the loyal foot soldier for Trump but disclaim Trump’s incendiary language and domestic flubs.

Molly Roberts

Why did this 35-year-old representative from upstate New York get a shout-out at President Trump's rally in Tulsa? She combines base-broadening appeal to female voters with a base-solidifying ideology. Nikki Haley is an alternative path for the Republican Party; Stefanik is a way for the GOP to keep walking in the same direction but look a little less out of step doing it.

David Byler

Tommy Tuberville will probably be the next senator from Alabama — because what we really need is reality TV and college football to be forever fused with politics.

Karen Tumulty

Alabama is still ... Alabama.

Hugh Hewitt

Sweet Home Alabama. The GOP has a lock on one flip. Only Roy Moore could have lost that seat. He did. Now the GOP gets it back.

Hugh Hewitt

Georgia’s David Perdue, like Thom Tillis in North Carolina, is on Democratic wish lists. But neither will be toppled as red states get redder and blue bluer come November. However, the Georgia seat currently occupied by appointee Kelly Loeffler (R) could indeed be endangered.

Karen Tumulty

Gardner is a very talented campaigner, but the headwinds he faces are strong this year.

Eugene Robinson

John Hickenlooper’s way ahead. Gardner may try to wriggle out of Trump’s embrace, but I think it will be too late.

Charles Lane

If some Republicans and independents cross over to vote against Trump in the fall, some may try to compensate by voting for a Republican in a Senate race. In extremely close states such as Maine and Colorado, where the Republican is more moderate than Trump, that could influence the outcome.

Greg Sargent

A Democratic win in Arizona would have huge implications for our politics. Swiping the second Senate seat in a border state where Trump gave his big 2016 immigration speech would show that Trump’s demagoguery on the issue is eroding the GOP’s grip on the Southwest. That could shift both parties’ electoral college calculations and confirm (especially if Trump loses the state) that Trumpism is a long-term loser for the GOP in a place that was supposed to thrill to it.

Eugene Robinson

Martha McSally is so far behind Mark Kelly right now that she can hardly see his dust, and she is going all-in with Trump. That doesn’t look like a promising strategy, to say the least.

Karen Tumulty

She's clinging tight to Trump, at the cost of her own brand.

Henry Olsen

McSally increasingly looks like a two-time loser in once staunchly Republican Arizona. Trump's unpopularity among college-educated suburbanites sunk her in 2018, and that trend is only stronger this year. She needs Trump to recover a lot of lost ground by November to have a fighting chance.

Hugh Hewitt

McSally narrowly lost in the headwinds of 2018, but her fighter pilot instincts have kicked in and she’s throwing her considerable energy and focus into the fray.

Jennifer Rubin

McSally has shown how foolish it is to embrace Trump wholeheartedly in a state drifting blue. Her opponent, former astronaut Mark Kelly, seems a perfect match for a state that elected a Democratic senator in 2018 and is quite winnable for Joe Biden.

Jennifer Rubin

Susan Collins stayed in D.C. when Trump visited her state, but she cannot conceal her votes for Brett Kavanaugh and for acquittal on impeachment. Independent-minded Mainers didn’t sign up for a Trump enabler, which is precisely what Collins has become.

Hugh Hewitt

Susan Collins faces an avalanche of blue dollars, but she will weather the storm. Her deep roots in the center of Maine’s politics will serve her well. Come Election Day, many Mainers who are the Yankee quiet type will just pull the lever for their long-serving, widely admired veteran of the Senate.

Henry Olsen

Collins has cultivated a moderate reputation for decades, but today's politics devours moderates for breakfast. She needs to run at least five points ahead of Trump to win, and very few Republicans facing a contested race were able to do that in 2018.

Greg Sargent

Liberals see defeating Susan Collins as a big prize because it would constitute justice for faux GOP moderation. Collins seemed to waver on both impeachment and confirming Brett Kavanaugh, only to side with Trump on both. An end to her career might send a message to other self-styled GOP “moderates” that they can’t easily get away with this two-step, possibly making progress under a Biden presidency a hair easier.

Megan McArdle

I’ll throw Kansas in here for two reasons. Frst, former governor Sam Brownback’s naive supply-siderism ran amok in the state and created lingering hard feelings for the Republican Party. Second, it’s an open seat, and open seats are easier to flip than ones held by incumbents.

Eugene Robinson

Gov. Steve Bullock knows how to win statewide in this red state, and I think he’ll do it again in November.

Molly Roberts

The most alliterative race on the map! This outcome seems likely to depend less on the candidates than on, you guessed it, the president. Iraq War vet Cal Cunningham (D) is hardly an ideologue, and incumbent Thom Tillis (R) has been tying himself more tightly to Trump over the course of his tenure. North Carolina is considered a swing state in the race for the White House as well as for this seat; the party that wins one will probably win the other.

Hugh Hewitt

She’s very, very smart and would be a buzzsaw on the stump, making up for Biden’s energy deficit. People could see her stepping up in 2024, and that’s a key factor.

Karen Tumulty

A Latina governor whose state is a neighbor to Arizona, which could be the one that determines the presidential race. I'm surprised she is not being mentioned more often in the handicapping.

Molly Roberts

She's a star, yes, and she could do better than most at ticking two boxes this ticket needs ticked: appeal to black voters, and appeal to younger voters who lean left. The problem is experience. She doesn't have it, and that's a live issue in an election where a nominee is old enough to hazard dying on the job.

Eugene Robinson

She’s campaigning too hard for the job and doesn’t have the ready-on-Day-One experience Biden needs in a running mate.

Eugene Robinson

The Florida congresswoman's toughness and presence inspire confidence, despite a relative lack of experience.

Hugh Hewitt

Though no one remembers the impeachment fiasco from amid the ruins of the virus, Demings was as able a proponent of an absurd theory as any.

Henry Olsen

Duckworth has an attractive bio and a good political mind. As an Asian American, she would also make history should she ascend to the ticket. One wonders, though: do two terms in the House and three years in the Senate make her ready for the presidency should Biden falter?

David Byler

Duckworth is a good pick because she’s not risky. She won’t bring in many votes, but she won’t lose any, either. If Biden wants to play defense, Duckworth is his best bet.

Jennifer Rubin

She served her country in combat, losing both legs and partial use of one arm. That already makes her an impressive contrast with Trump, who escaped serving in Vietnam with a “bone spurs” diagnosis. She is fully qualified for the job, having served as assistant secretary of veterans affairs and in the House and Senate. If one can be the “favorite long shot,” Duckworth is it.

Greg Sargent

Every time Trump attacks Whitmer, her national profile and appeal to the Democratic base rise in tandem. That she’s weathered Trump’s attacks without getting pulled down into the muck is not lost on Biden’s team, which sees that as a key strategic goal. Yes, they may worry the anti-lockdown fringe’s attacks on her have rendered her overly polarizing. But a popular industrial Midwestern governor who knows how to handle Trump is an automatic contender, particularly if Team Biden thinks the pandemic will still be with us this fall.

Eugene Robinson

She’s very popular in Michigan, despite the protests, and takes that key state off the table for Trump.

Greg Sargent

If Biden is really planning an FDR-style presidency, as he clearly wants voters to believe, then picking Warren as veep would telegraph he’s dead serious about it. Warren is among the sharpest critics of this country’s maldistribution of wealth and economic power, has proposed a far-reaching overhaul of all of it, and is top-notch at communicating complicated economic concepts.

Christine Emba

Now, more than ever, we should be paying attention to inequality and the dire straits of the working and middle classes. But we’ll have to do that while making sure financial gains aren’t siphoned off by big business and finance. In short, we need a plan for our post-covid economic recovery. Guess who’s got one.

Eugene Robinson

The entire executive branch is going to have to be restaffed; Warren would be by far the best at doing it. And if we’re still in the middle of a raging pandemic, she’ll have a plan for that, too.

David Byler

I left Warren off my list because she actively undermines Biden’s message. Biden wants voters to see him as the pragmatic, left-but-not-a-scary-progressive candidate. Warren’s presence on the ticket would compromise that pitch.

Christine Emba

Sources say she has officially been asked by Biden’s team to undergo vetting for the nomination. But if I had Biden’s ear, I’d suggest he think again. Klobuchar isn’t bringing anything new to his campaign. And in these times, a dose of real energy is what he needs.

Molly Roberts

She's supposed to appeal to the middle — of the country, of the ideological spectrum. Basically, she'd constitute a doubling-down on the strategy that won Biden the primary. The risk is low, but is the reward low, too.

Charles Lane

I think the whole election comes down to a handful of Midwestern swing states, which makes Klobuchar still the safest choice, and the smartest one, despite boomlets for Harris and Abrams.

Hugh Hewitt

Locks up Minnesota (which isn’t locked) and maybe gets an ice pick into Wisconsin.

David Byler

The vetting gives Biden a chance to comb through her records.

Eugene Robinson

She ticks all the boxes, has been vetted on the national stage and has the prosecutorial chops to go for the president’s jugular while Biden plays national healer. And as former California attorney general, she has the experience to clean up whatever hellish mess Barr is making at Justice.

Jennifer Rubin

She looks stronger with each passing day as expectations for an African American woman on the ticket grow. She’s been vetted nationally, can stay on message, can slice and dice Republicans, is close to the Bidens, and would be a credible president should it be necessary for her to step up. The question has changed from “Could it be Harris?” to “Is there any reason it shouldn’t be Harris?”

Hugh Hewitt

I thought she was a lock for the nomination, so count this as a double lock.

I wish I’d been right about Harris and Sanders and wrong about the virus. It was the other way around. But my finishing dead last is proof positive that Democrats are not easily understood by Republicans. For the record, I was confident that Sen. Kennedy was going to beat President Carter in the race for the 1980 nomination.

— Hugh

Predictions are hard, especially about the future.

— Megan

What can I say? That I didn’t always take this project entirely seriously? (I’m looking at you, Oprah and the Rock.) That I took Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren too seriously? That I underestimated the extraordinary power of Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) to bring the cold corpse of the Biden campaign back to life? All true, all beside the point. I’m just not good at predictions.

— David

“All I can say is that I voted my conscience.”

— Christine

See Megan McArdle’s comment and know that I am living proof. My track record is, eh, mediocre for the top slot; for about half the weeks, I ranked Biden as the most likely challenger to Trump — but the rest of my predictions were utterly disastrous. In particular, I expected Harris to do much better in the primary than she did. But then … so did a lot of my colleagues. Sanders also did much better than I'd expected him to, especially early in the race when the "left lane" seemed particularly crowded.

From the start of the Democratic primary, Biden had major advantages — his name ID, his association with the single most popular Democrat in the country, and his appeal to African American and older voters. If one focused on those factors, nothing changed from early 2019 to Super Tuesday and beyond.

Moreover, as did the Biden camp, I believed that despite Twitter and vocal progressive activists, the Democratic Party had not gone far left; the mainstream media narrative overestimated Sen. Bernie Sanders’s influence on the party. Journalists also put far too much focus on debate performances (where Biden was weaker) and verbal acuity — and too little on the genuine affection Democrats feel for Biden. A deep-seated and emotional attachment to a candidate is always going to overwhelm debate performances and minor gaffes.

If one kept an eye on Biden’s strengths and ignored the media chatter about a lurch left, it was not hard to predict Biden would win it.

— Jen

Here's a real howler I committed again and again: failing to follow my own advice. Early on, I argued repeatedly that people shouldn't take seriously momentary poll swings (such as when Kamala Harris surged). That turned out to be correct. But then, when Joe Biden tanked after Bernie Sanders's initial strong showing, I was far too quick to play up Sanders's chances while writing Biden off as all but dead. All of which goes to show that resisting the tug of those ephemeral poll swings is really, really hard to do. And of course, I'll surely forget this lesson next time, too.

— Greg

Horse races are a lot less fun when Secretariat is ahead the entire time, so it's no wonder we pundits were so eager for candidates to pull up and pull back down as the weeks went by. I certainly fell victim to over-crediting these momentary surges; when Pete Buttigieg bumped in the popular narrative (and the polls), he bumped in my rankings, too. Same with the short-lived Elizabeth Warren renaissance. Very often the guy with the best odds wins by a furlong after all, boring as it can be.

— Molly

The key to my (relative) success: Never stray too far from the poll numbers.

— Chuck

I ranked candidates by likelihood to win rather than expected share of the vote. That meant I always pushed Mike Bloomberg way down on my list. Given our methodology, being right about him paradoxically meant I did worse in our final standings!

— Henry

This is a really smart and knowledgeable group, so I feel pretty good about third place! I do wonder if I should have trusted the polls more, though. Some of my worst weeks were early, when I tried to forecast a Harris surge or bought into the Warren hype too early.

— David

Ahem. Thank you, thank you so much. No, really, thank you all! (Struggles to be heard over thunderous standing ovation from fellow competitors.) What I did right, I think, was assume that the earthquake of 2016 did not completely invalidate the laws of political physics. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a front-runner is an actual front-runner. What I did wrong was — I don’t know, apparently not much at all. I accept this award humbly and in great haste, as I am worried that Megan McArdle will double-check the math behind David Byler and apply some sort of advanced regression analysis that flips the rankings and puts me in the cellar.

— Gene

Damn you, Gene Robinson. We will meet again, my friend, on the field of combat in 2024. Bwahahahaha.

— Karen

Megan McArdle

Turner, who was Sanders’s opening act on the campaign trail, got a more enthusiastic response from crowds than the headliner did. At the moment, she’s just a state representative — but so was Barack Obama when he spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Megan McArdle

Stefanik is young, feisty and made quite a name for herself during the impeachment hearings. She is, of course, a long shot, but then the best presidential candidates often are.

Greg Sargent

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer became a rising star immediately upon winning in 2018 by 10 points, showing Democrats can take back the Midwest. Trump's battle with Whitmer over his coronavirus fiasco boosted her standing with the Democratic base and her national media profile as a crisis manager unafraid to brave Trumpian rage for her state. Coronavirus has highlighted the importance of governors, making it more likely the party will nominate one for veep this year — and for president down the line.

Jennifer Rubin

She might be selected as VP and then move up to the top slot in 2024 or 2028, but she is just as likely to make it as a successful governor of a prominent Midwest state. As with many governors, she will rise or fall based on her handling of the pandemic.

Karen Tumulty

The highly regarded Midwestern governor has a lot going for her.

Henry Olsen

Ernst would be a non-controversial veep choice for any Republican nominee: military vet, senator from a swing Midwestern state, circa 50. Once that happens, watch her stock rise fast.

David Byler

Ernst has the potential to really understand the new and old versions of the GOP. So why not have her on the list?

Hugh Hewitt

When Rep. Liz Cheney (R) decided to stay in the House, she surprised many; she would have surely been elected senator from Wyoming. She is confident, rightly, of eventually becoming GOP House leader, whether in two years or 10, and jumping from that job to a national ticket or campaign is very possible. Cheney is rightly recognized as a national security expert, and her family brand resonates deeply among the GOP base. She could be our country’s Thatcher. The talent is there.

Henry Olsen

Klobuchar is in my mind the odds-on bet to become Joe Biden's veep choice, and he is the odds-on bet to become president. Apart from LBJ’s immediate accession after the Kennedy assassination, no Democratic VP has failed to eventually be the party's nominee since the Truman administration’s Alben Barkley. And current trends suggest Democrats have a long-term electoral advantage that favors her succeeding Biden soon.

Karen Tumulty

See Kamala Harris. All I said applies to Klobuchar, if she gets the nod from Biden.

David Byler

Becoming the first female vice president would give Klobuchar a clear path to becoming the first female president.

Jennifer Rubin

She’s among the top contenders for Biden’s VP pick. If she gets onto the winning ticket, she will be in a prime position for the presidency in 2024 should Biden not run for reelection, and in 2028 if he does.

Karen Tumulty

She's still my bet to be Biden's running mate, which, as Jen said, would give her the inside track in 2024 were he to get elected and not run for a second term.

Greg Sargent

If you doubt Nikki Haley has presidential ambitions, note how carefully she has navigated the Trump era. She has selectively distanced herself from Trump’s worst excesses (attacks on lawmakers of color, his Ukraine scheme, etc.), while also gingerly suggesting his motives weren’t racist or corrupt — to avoid offending the Trump base.

This will preserve goodwill with that base if the GOP remains Trumpified, or allow a pivot to moderation if necessary. That, plus her background as South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, sets her up for a future run no matter what happens to her party.