Final GOP debate of 2015 shapes up as midterm exam for Ted Cruz

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'National security' debate Tuesday shapes up as a clash between front-runner Donald Trump and surging Ted Cruz
Two new polls have widely divergent results; one has Trump leading Cruz by 4 points, another by 27
Cruz may have to hammer Trump in public for the first time after months of bromance and rumors of a mutual-defense pact between the two
Trump, Cruz, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio make up the top two tiers with everyone else averaging in low single digits
For full coverage of the GOP debate visit www.dailymail.co.uk/GOPDebate

By David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.com In Las Vegas, Nevada and Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent For Dailymail.com

Published: 12:04 EST, 14 December 2015 | Updated: 13:06 EST, 14 December 2015

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Tuesday's Republican presidential primary debate will provide election-watchers with new levels of drama in the Las Vegas desert, as Donald Trump's once-iron grip on the GOP's nomination process has shown signs of loosening.

Ted Cruz, the hard-charging tea party senator from Texas, is the latest to surge with a massive leap to the head of the field in Iowa. And he's breathing down Trump's neck nationally in at least one poll.

Trump faces the same challenge he has in every debate since August: how to maintain his bombast-fueled advantage while persuading moderate Republicans that he can unite the nation in a time of terrorism and international tumult.

Cruz has new momentum to maintain and can do it by staying above the fray – but may have to attack Trump in order to avoid turning his spike in the polls as little more than the latest in a series of flavor-of-the-week moments.

STAGE IS SET: Ted Cruz will join Donald Trump as the center of attention Tuesday night during a long-awaited Republican presidential primary debate

THE NEW TOP TIER: Trump (left) is maintaining his national advantage, but the margin is shrinking – and Crus (right) has vaulted over the field in the crucial early state of Iowa

HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS: A stark dividing line exists in the Republican presidential field, with four men above it and everyone else struggling to keep up

Trump seems to relish the idea of dissolving the two men's love-fest that has seemed to defy political odds as one back-bencher after another landed soft punches on the front-runner during the Summer of Trump.

'Looks like @tedcruz is getting ready to attack,' Trump tweeted on Friday. 'I am leading by so much he must. I hope so, he will fall like all others. Will be easy!'

Ten months ago in Iowa, Cruz told DailyMail.com that he wouldn't give reporters the satisfaction of watching him 'engaging in Republican-on-Republican violence.'

Months later he visited Trump in his gleaming New York City office tower as the two men nurtured a bromance that had some wags talking about a possible mutual-defense pact.

But without an aggressive posture toward The Donald as he gets more questions and draws more scrutiny, Cruz may appear weak to Trump partisans who may be considering jumping ship as the billionaire's rhetoric heats up to new levels.

Cruz's dramatic polling turn – retired surgeon Ben Carson led Trump in some polls just weeks ago but has slipped since then – puts the senator's podium one one side of the billionaire real estate tycoon's at center stage when CNN broadcasts the fifth GOP debate of the 2016 election season.

Carson will be on Trump's other side, followed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio – the only other Republican to average more than 10 per cent in recent national polls.

Rubio's path to the top tier may lie in the knotty question of how much power the National Security Agency should have to keep and sift through Americans' phone records in search of threads to follow in terrorism investigations.

Cruz in particular supported the USA Freedom Act, which has pared back the NSA's ability to archive the records and instead put them under the inconsistent control of phone companies.

Rubio, who voted against the bill, has made it a front-and-center issue this month.

It's likely to be a major focus on Tuesday: Debate organizers have framed the event as a national security-focused slugfest.

LINEUP CARD: The top-polling candidates will be at center-stage as in previous debates, with long-shot Republicans like John Kasich and Rand Paul straining to participate from the margins

BIG GAMBLE: The GOP field will jockey for position at the glamorous Venetian hotel and casino on the famed Las Vegas strip

Even if he can effectively sideline Rubio, Cruz still has his work cut out for him in parrying a long-awaited barrage of attacks from Trump – who called him 'a bit of a maniac' on Sunday for his slash-and-burn tactics on the Senate floor.

Cruz responded by tweaking the business titan on Twitter, with a clip from 'Maniac,' a hit song from the 1983 movie 'Flashdance.'

The Texas senator is also expected to go out of his way on Tuesday to appeal to evangelical Christians, especially in the early voting state of Iowa where he holds a massive advantage.

A new Des Moines Register poll has Cruz leading Trump by 10 per cent there, enjoying support from a whopping 45 per cent of evangelicals.

Nearly 60 per cent of Republican Iowa caucus-goers put themselves in the camp. Church-going Christians are a powerful organizing force in the Hawkeye State, driving tens of thousands of Iowans to the statewide caucuses that can make or break a White House candidacy every four years.

The 2008 and 2012 Iowa GOP caucus winners, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, also rode to victory by wearing their Bible-thumping Christian conservatism on their sleeves.

A far more distant pack of third-tier candidates who qualified for Tuesday's debate include former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, onetime tech CEO Carly Fiorina, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

None of them has polled in double digits in any national poll since early October. That was Bush, who is showing signs of life with a 7 per cent showing in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Monday morning.

That's the same poll that has Cruz just four points behind Trump. But in another survey released Monday, from Monmouth University, Trump has a commanding lead with 41 per cent to Cruz's 14.

It's likely that debate moderators from CNN and the Salem Radio Network will ask the entire field for an update on the tense question of whether they will back Trump if he's their party's nominee.

They have all signed a loyalty pledge promising to endorse the eventual primary winner. Trump's proposal this month to temporarily close the American borders to Muslims put the question back on the table after nearly all of the GOP presidential candidates hammered him for suggesting it.

THE NEW SECOND TIER: Ben Carson's (left) star has faded since he led some polls last month; Marco Rubio (right) has crept up into the national spotlight with a consistent but limited message about national security

WHITHER JEB? Bush has slipped into the bottom part of the GOP field, although one new poll shows him gaining slightly

None of the heavy hitters has made an about-face on the oath so far, but Kasich said he could change his mind in an 'extreme circumstance.'

DailyMail.com reached out to all of the campaigns last week but only a few responded.

Several said that while they would continue to pledge their allegiance to whomever emerges as the Republican victor, they inserted a mental asterisk – saying it wouldn't be Trump.

'It’s not going to happen. He’s not going to be the nominee,' Bush said on MSNBC last week.

'I will support the Republican nominee, and I’m working hard to make sure I’m it.'

At the bottom of the scale on Tuesday will be a quartet of perennial also-rans who couldn't muster the minimum support to qualify for the prime-time main event at the glitzy Venetian casino resort.

Huckabee, Santorum, former New York Gov. George Pataki and current South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham will participate in a warm-up debate event that's expected to draw a far smaller TV audience.

Christie was stuck in the so-called 'kids table' debate last month in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but will be back on the main stage Tuesday.

Cruz is taking a laid-back approach to the 36 hours before Tuesday's debate, while Trump is hosting a campaign rally Monday night in Nevada.

The Donald will likely take a few warm-up shots at the Texan in public, while Cruz has preferred to air his gripes to donors in private.

Speaking of Trump last week in New York, he told a close-knit group that the question of which candidate would have 'their finger on the button' is 'a question of strength, but it's also a question of judgment.'

THE 2016 FIELD: WHO'S IN, WHO'S QUIT AND WHO'S STILL THINKING IT OVER

A whopping 17 people from America's two major political parties are candidates in the 2016 presidential election.

The field includes two women, an African-American and two Latinos. All but one in that group – Hillary Clinton – are Republicans.

At 14 candidates, the GOP field is without two early dropouts but still deeper than ever after one current and one former governor bowed out.

A much smaller group of three Democrats includes a former secretary of state, a former governor and a current senator.

REPUBLICANS IN THE RACE

Jeb Bush Former Florida governor

Age on Election Day: 63

Religion: Catholic

Base: Moderates

Résumé: Former Florida governor and secretary of state. Former co-chair of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.

Education: B.A. University of Texas at Austin.

Family: Married to Columba Bush (1974), with three adult children. Noelle Bush has made news with her struggle with drug addiction, and related arrests. George P. Bush was elected Texas land commissioner in 2014. Jeb's father George H.W. Bush was the 41st President of the United States, and his brother George W. Bush was number 43.

Claim to fame: Jeb was an immensely popular governor with strong economic and jobs credentials. He is also one of just two GOP candidates who is fluent in Spanish.

Achilles heel: Bush has angered conservatives with his permissive positions on illegal immigration (saying some border-crossing is 'an act of love) and common-core education standards. His last name could also be a liability with voters who fear establishing a family dynasty in the White House.

Chris Christie New Jersey governor

Age on Election Day: 54

Religion: Catholic

Base: Establishment-minded conservatives

Résumé: Governor of New Jersey. Former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Former Morris County freeholder and lobbyist.

Governor of New Jersey. Former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Former Morris County freeholder. Former statehouse lobbyist.

Education: B.A. University of Delaware, Newark, J.D. Seton Hall University.

Family: Married to Mary Pat Foster (1986) with four children.

Claim to fame: Pugnacious and unapologetic, Christie once told a heckler to 'sit down and shut up' and brings a brash style to everything he does. That includes the post-9/11 criminal prosecutions of terror suspects that made his reputation as a hard-charger.

Achilles heel: Christie is often accused of embracing an ego-driven and needlessly abrasive style. His administration continues to operate under a 'Bridgegate' cloud: At least two aides have been indicted in an alleged scheme to shut down lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge as political retribution for a mayor who refused to endorse the governor's re-election.

Carly Fiorina Former tech CEO

Age on Election Day: 62

Religion: Episcopalian

Base: Conservatives

Résumé: Former CEO of Hewett-Packard. Former group president of Lucent Technologies. Former U.S. Senate candidate in California.

Education: B.A. Stanford University. UCLA School of Law (did not finish). M.B.A. University of Maryland. M.Sci. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Family: Married to Frank Fiorina (1985), with one adult step-daughter and another who is deceased. She has two step-grandchildren. Divorced from Todd Bartlem (1977-1984).

Claim to fame: Fiorina was the first woman to lead a Fortune 20 company, something that could provide ammunition against the Democratic Party's drive to make Hillary Clinton the first female president. She is also the only woman in the 2016 GOP field, making her the one Republican who can't be accused of sexism.

Achilles heel: Fiorina's unceremonious firing by HP's board has led to questions about her management and leadership styles. And her only political experience has been a failed Senate bid in 2010 against Barbara Boxer.

Lindsey Graham South Carolina senator

Age on Election Day: 61

Religion: Southern Baptist

Base: Otherwise moderate war hawks

Résumé: U.S. senator. Retired Air Force Reserves colonel. Former congressman. Former South Carolina state representative.

Education: B.A. University of South Carolina. J.D. University of South Carolina Law School.

Family: Never married. Raised his sister Darline after their parents died while he was a college student and she was 13.

Claim to fame: Graham is a hawk's hawk, arguing consistently for greater intervention in the Middle East, once arguing in favor of pre-emptive military strikes against Iran. His influence was credited for pushing President George W. Bush to institute the 2007 military 'surge' in Iraq.

Achilles heel: Some of his critics have taken to call him 'Grahamnesty,' citing his participating in a 2013 'gang of eight' strategy to approve an Obama-favored immigration bill. He has also aroused the ire of conservative Republicans by supporting global warming legislation and voting for some of the president's judicial nominees.

John Kasich Ohio governor

Age on Election Day: 64

Religion: Anglican

Base: Centrists

Résumé: Governor of Ohio. Former chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee. Former Ohio congressman. Former Ohio state senator.

Education: B.A. The Ohio State University.

Family: Married to Karen Waldbillig (1997). Divorced from Mary Lee Griffith (1975-1980).

Claim to fame: Kasich was Ohio youngest-ever member of the state legislature at age 25. He's known for a compassionate and working-class sensibility that appeals to both ends of the political spectrum. In the 1990s when Newt Gingrich led a Republican revolution that took over Congress, Kasich became the chairman of the House Budget Committee – a position for a wonk's wonk who understands the nuanced intricacies of how government runs.

Achilles heel: Some of Kasich's political positions rankle conservatives, including his choice to expand Ohio's Medicare system under the Obamacare law, and his support for the much-derided 'Common Core' education standards program.

Rand Paul Kentucky senator

Age on Election Day: 53

Religion: Presbyterian

Base: Libertarians

Résumé: US senator. Board-certified ophthalmologist. Former congressional campaign manager for his father Ron Paul.

Education: Baylor University (did not finish). M.D. Duke University School of Medicine.

Family: Married to Kelley Ashby (1990), with three sons. His father is a former Texas congressman who ran for president three times but never got close to grabbing the brass ring.

Claim to fame: Paul embraces positions that are at odds with most in the GOP, including an anti-interventionist foreign policy, reduced military spending, criminal drug sentencing reform for African-Americans and strict limits on government electronic surveillance – including a clampdown on the National Security Agency.

Achilles heel: Paul's politics are aligned with those of his father, whom mainstream GOPers saw as kooky. Both Pauls have advocated for a brand of libertarianism that forces government to stop domestic surveillance programs and limits foreign military interventions.

Rick Santorum Former Penn. senator

Age on Election Day: 58

Religion: Catholic

Base: Evangelicals

Résumé: Former US senator and former member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Former lobbyist who represented World Wrestling Entertainment.

Education: B.A. Penn State University. M.B.A. University of Pittsburgh. J.D. Penn State University Dickinson School of Law.

Family: Married to Karen Santorum (1990), with seven living children. One baby was stillborn in 1996. Another, named Isabella, is a special needs child with a genetic disorder.

Claim to fame: Santorum won the 2012 Republican Iowa Caucuses by a nose. He won by visiting all of Iowa's 99 states in a pickup truck belonging to his state campaign director, a consultant who now worls for Donald Trump.

Achilles heel: As a young lobbyist, Santorum persuaded the federal government to exempt pro wrestling from regulations governing the use of anabolic steroids. And the stridently conservative politician has attracted strong opposition from gay rights groups. One gay columnist held a contest to redefine his name, buying the 'santorum.com' domain to advertise the winning entry – which is too vulgar to print.

REPUBLICAN DROPOUTS

Rick Perry, former Texas governor

(withdrew Sept. 11, 2015)

Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor

(withdrew Sept. 21, 2015)

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana governor

(withdrew Nov. 17, 2015)

Ben Carson Retired Physician

Age on Election Day: 65

Religion: Seventh-day Adventist

Base: Evangelicals

Résumé: Famous pediatric neurosurgeon, youngest person to head a major Johns Hopkins Hospital division. Founder of the Carson Scholars Fund, which awards scholarships to children of good character.

Education: B.A. Yale University. M.D. University of Michigan Medical School.

Family: Married to Candy Carson (1975), with three adult sons. The Carsons live in Maryland with Ben's elderly mother Sonya, who was a seminal influence on his life and development.

Claim to fame: Carson spoke at a National Prayer Breakfast in 2013, railing against political correctness and condemned Obamacare – with President Obama sitting just a few feet away.

Achilles heel: Carson is inflexibly conservative, opposing gay marriage and once saying gay attachments formed in prison provided evidence that sexual orientation is a choice.

Ted Cruz Texas senator

Age on Election Day: 45

Religion: Southern Baptist

Base: Tea partiers

Résumé:U.S. senator. Former Texas solicitor general. Former U.S. Supreme Court clerk. Former associate deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush.

Education: B.A. Princeton University. J.D. Harvard Law School.

Family: Married to Heidi Nelson Cruz (2001), with two young daughters. His father is a preacher and he has two half-sisters.

Claim to fame: Cruz spoke on the Senate floor for more than 21 hours in September 2013 to protest the inclusion of funding for Obamacare in a federal budget bill. (The bill moved forward as written.) He has called for the complete repeal of the medical insurance overhaul law, and also for a dismantling of the Internal Revenue Service. Cruz is also outspoken about border security.

Achilles heel: Cruz's father Rafael, a Texas preacher, is a tea party firebrand who has said gay marriage is a government conspiracy and called President Barack Obama a Marxist who should 'go back to Kenya.' Cruz himself also has a reputation as a take-no-prisoners Christian evangelical, which might play well in South Carolina but won't win him points in the other early primary states and could cost him momentum if he should be the GOP's presidential nominee.

Jim Gilmore Former Virginia governor

Age on Election Day: 67

Religion: United Methodist

Base: Conservatives

Résumé: Former governor and attorney general of Virginia. Former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Former U.S. Army intelligence agent. President and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation. Board member of the National Rifle Association

Education: B.A. University of Virginia.

Family: Married to Roxane Gatling Gilmore (1977), with two adult children. Mrs. GIlmore is a survivor of Hodgkin's lymphoma

Claim to fame: Gilmore presided over Virginia when the 9/11 terrorists struck in 1991, guiding the state through a difficult economic downturn after one of the hijacked airliners crashed into the Pentagon. He is nest known in Virginia for eliminating most of a much-maligned personal property tax on automobiles, working with a Democratic-controlled state legislature to get it passed and enacted.

Achilles heel: Gilmore is the only GOP or Democratic candidate for president who has been the chairman of his political party, giving him a rap as an 'establishment' candidate. A social-conservative crusader, he is loathed by the left for championing the state law that established 24-hour waiting periods for abortions. Gilmore also has a reputation as an indecisive campaigner, having dropped out of the 2008 presidential race in July 2007.

Mike Huckabee Former Arkansas governor

Age on Election Day: 61

Religion: Southern Baptist

Base: Evangelicals

Résumé: Former governor and lieutenant governor of Arkansas. Former Fox News Channel host. Ordained minister and author.

Education: B.A. Ouachita Baptist University. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (did not finish).

Family: Married to Janet Huckabee (1974), with three adult children. Mrs. Huckabee is a survivor of spinal cancer.

Claim to fame: 'Huck' is a political veteran and has run for president before, winning the Iowa Caucuses in 2008 and finishing second for the GOP nomination behind John McCain. He's known as an affable Christian and succeeded in building a huge following on his weekend television program, in which he frequently sat in on the electric bass with country & western groups and other 'wholesome' musical entertainers.

Achilles heel: Huckabee may have a problem with female voters. He complained in 2014 about Obamacare's mandatory contraception coverage, saying Democrats want women to 'believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar.' He earned more scorn for hawking herbal supplements in early-2015 infomercials as a diabetes cure, something he has yet to disavow despite disagreement from medical experts.

George Pataki Former New York governor

Age on Election Day: 71

Religion: Catholic

Base: Centrists

Résumé: Former governor of New York. Former New York state senator and state assemblyman. Former mayor of Peekskill, NY.

Education: B.A. Yale University. J.D. Columbia Law School.

Family: Married to Libby Rowland (1973), with four adult children.

Claim to fame: Pataki was just the third Republican governor in New York's history, winning an improbable victory over three-term incumbent Mario Cuomo in 1994. He was known for being a rare tax-cutter in Albany and was also the sitting governor when the 9/11 terror attacks rocked New York CIty in 2001.

Achilles heel: While Pataki's liberal-leaning social agenda plays well in the Empire State, it won't win him any fans among the GOP's conservative base. He supports abortion rights and gay rights, and has advocated strongly in favor of government intervention to stop global warming, which right-wingers believe is overblown as a global threat.

Marco Rubio Florida senator

Age on Election Day: 45

Religion: Catholic

Base: Conservatives

Résumé: US senator, former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, former city commissioner of West Miami

Education: B.A. University of Florida. J.D. University of Miami School of Law.

Family: Married to Jeanette Dousdebes (1998), with two sons and two daughters. Jeanette is a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader who posed for the squad’s first swimsuit calendar.

Claim to fame: Rubio's personal story as the son of Cuban emigres is a powerful narrative, and helped him win his Senate seat in 2010 against a well-funded governor whom he initially trailed by 20 points.

Achilles heel: Rubio was part of a bipartisan 'gang of eight' senators who crafted an Obama-approved immigration reform bill in 2013 which never became law – a move that angered conservative Republicans. And he was criticized in 2011 for publicly telling a version of his parents' flight from Cuba that turned out to appear embellished.

Donald Trump Real estate developer

Age on Election Day: 70

Religion: Presbyterian

Base: Conservatives

Résumé: Chairman of The Trump Organization. Fixture on the Forbes 400 list of the world's richest people. Star of 'Celebrity Apprentice.'

Education: B.Sci. Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Family: Married to Melania Trump (2005). Divorced from Ivana Zelníčková (1977-92) and Marla Maples(1993–99). Five grown children. Trump's father Fred Trump amassed a $400 million fortune developing real estate.

Claim to fame: Trump's niche in the 2016 campaign stems from his celebrity as a reality-show host and his enormous wealth – more than $10 billion, according to Trump. Because he can self-fund an entire presidential campaign, he is seen as less beholden to donors than other candidates. He has grabbed the attention of reporters and commentators by unapologetically staking out controversial positions and refusing to budge in the face of criticism.

Achilles heel: Trump is a political neophyte who has toyed with running for president and for governor of New York, but shied away from taking the plunge until now. His billions also have the potential to alienate large swaths of the electorate. And his Republican rivals have labeled him an ego-driven celeb and an electoral sideshow because of his all-over-the-map policy history – much of which agrees with today's Democrats – and his past enthusiasm for anti-Obama 'birtherism.'

DEMOCRATS IN THE RACE

Hillary Clinton Former sec. of state

Age on Election Day: 69

Religion: United Methodist

Base: Liberals

Résumé:Former secretary of state. Former U.S. senator from New York. Former U.S. first lady. Former Arkansas first lady. Former law school faculty, University of Arkansas Fayetteville.

Education: B.A. Wellesley College. J.D. Yale Law School.

Family: Married to Bill Clinton (1975), the 42nd President of the United States. Their daughter Chelsea is married to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, whose mother was a 1990s one-term Pennsylvania congresswoman.

Claim to fame: Clinton was the first US first lady with a postgraduate degree and presaged Obamacare with a failed attempt at health care reform in the 1990s.

Achilles heel: A long series of financial and ethical scandals has dogged Clinton, including recent allegations that her husband and their family foundation benefited financially from decisions she made as secretary of state. Her performance surrounding the 2012 terror attack on a State Department facility in Benghazi, Libya, has been catnip for conservative Republicans. And her presidential campaign has been marked by an unwillingness to engage journalists, instead meeting with hand-picked groups of voters.

Bernie Sanders* Vermont senator

Age on Election Day: 75

Religion: Jewish

Base: Far-left progressives

Résumé:U.S. senator. Former U.S. congressman. Former mayor of Burlington, VT.

Education: B.A. University of Chicago.

Family: Married to Jane O’Meara Sanders (1988), a former president of Burlington College. He has one child from a previous relationship and is stepfather to three from Mrs. Sanders' previous marriage. His brother Larry is a Green Party politician in the UK and formerly served on the Oxfordshire County Council.

Claim to fame: Sanders is an unusually blunt, and unapologetic pol, happily promoting progressivism without hedging. He is also the longest-serving 'independent' member of Congress – neither Democrat nor Republican.

Achilles heel: Sanders describes himself as a 'democratic socialist.' At a time of huge GOP electoral gains, his far-left ideas don't poll well. He favors open borders, single-payer universal health insurance, and greater government control over media ownership.

* Sanders is running as a Democrat but has no party affiliation in the Senate.

Martin O'Malley Former Maryland governor

Age on Election Day: 53

Religion: Catholic

Base: Centrists

Résumé:Former Maryland governor. Former city councilor and mayor of Baltimore, MD. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

Education: B.A. Catholic University of America. J.D. University of Maryland.

Family: Married to Katie Curran (1990) and they have four children. Curran is a district court judge in Baltimore. Her father is Maryland's attorney general. O'Malley's mother is a receptionists in the Capitol Hill office of Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski.

Claim to fame: O'Malley pushed for laws in Maryland legalizing same-sex marriage and giving illegal immigrants the right to pay reduced tuition rates at public universities. But he's best known for playing guitar and sung in a celtic band cammed 'O’Malley’s March.'

Achilles heel: O’Malley may struggle in the Democratic primary since he endorsed Hillary Clinton eight years ago. If he prevails, he will have to run far enough to her left to be an easy target for the GOP. He showed political weakness when his hand-picked successor lost the 2014 governor's race to a Republican. But most troubling is his link with Baltimore, whose 2016 race riots have made it a nuclear subject for politicians of all stripes.

DEMOCRATIC DROPOUTS

Jim Webb, former Virginia senator

(withdrew Oct. 20, 2015)

Lincoln Chafee, former Rhode Island governor

(withdrew Oct. 23, 2015)