Seven Days And Counting

In a presidential campaign that started about 7 seconds after Mitt Romney delivered his concession speech on November 6, 2012, we're now only 7 days away from the first actual votes, in the Iowa caucuses. You know, from actual voters. On Friday, Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post issued his latest rankings of GOP candidates, in order of their likelihood of being the nominee:

1. Donald Trump
2. Ted Cruz
3. Marco Rubio
4. Jeb Bush
5. John Kasich
6. Chris Christie

One of the most striking things about this list is that there are only 6 names on it. (My running list of declared candidates currently shows 12; not included on Cillizza's list are Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Jim Gilmore. Note that Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, Santorum won, barely, in 2012.)

Both sides have one more debate before the voting starts. CNN is hosting a "Town Hall" for the Democratic candidates tonight; Fox hosts the Republicans on Thursday.

Will The Donald win next Monday night? Will Hillary? What happens if either/both of them don't win Iowa? As entertaining as this campaign has been, it's only going to get more so as the votes start being counted. I'm assuming that several GOP candidates will drop out if they don't do well in Iowa, I'll keep my list updated. Here's how it looks today, and remember, this list is in order of officially entering the race, not likelihood of being the nominee:

Declared (and still in the race) GOP Candidates

1. Ted Cruz (March 23) 
2. Rand Paul (April 7)
3. Marco Rubio (April 14)
4. Dr. Ben Carson (May 3) 
5. Carly Fiorina (May 4) 
6. Mike Huckabee (May 5) 
7. Rick Santorum (May 27)
8. Jeb Bush (June 15)
9. Donald Trump (June 16) 
10. Chris Christie (June 30)
11. John Kasich (July 21) 
12. Jim Gilmore (July 30) 

Officially Not Running
Rob Portman (Dec 2, 2014)
Paul Ryan (Jan 12, 2015)
Mitt Romney (Jan 30, 2015)
Rick Snyder (May 7, 2015)
John Bolton (May 14, 2015) 

Mike Pence (May 20, 2015) 

Bob Ehrlich (August 4, 2015)

You're Fired!: Candidates Who Have Dropped Out
Rick Perry (June 4 - Sept. 11)
Scott Walker (July 13 - Sept. 21)
Bobby Jindal (June 24 - November 17)
Lindsey Graham (June 1 - December 21)
George Pataki (May 28 - December 29)

Days until Election Day: 287