The GOP has confirmed that 16 serious candidates have declared their run for presidency as Republicans for the upcoming 2016 presidential election. Compared to the 10 democratic candidates currently running, the spot for the republican nominee comes with a higher competitive edge.

This large number of candidates within the republican party can either be beneficial or detrimental to the party succeeding in the general election. Looking back on the historical election of 1936, the famous Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won all electoral votes except for 8. This was the largest victory in the entire 1900’s. During this election, the United States was in its 8th year of the Great Depression, which some say was caused by the unregulated economy that our Republican President Calvin Coolidge promoted.

Once Republican Herbert Hoover was elected in 1929, he had virtually failed to fix the economy, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. This economic catastrophe caused the United States population to elect a democrat into office to help fix the problem. President Roosevelt worked to incorporate his New Deal policies to relieve Americans of the poor economy, and he gradually made our economy stronger by adding government regulation to virtually every sector.

Fast forward to the upcoming election in 2016, and we can see how a similar situation can work in favor of the Republicans. Over the past eight years, President Obama has not done an effective job in leading our country according to the Republican party. He has created government programs that siphon more money from taxpayers yet don’t effectively work, and he has negotiated very controversial deals such as the recent Nuclear deal with Iran. Due to these problems, we have a large amount of republicans wanting to correct mistakes they see, similar to Franklin Roosevelt wanting to fix the Great Depression. Republican candidate Donald Trump has stated, “We don’t win anymore. We lose to China, Japan, Mexico, and now to Iran in this incompetent deal.”

Candidates like Donald Trump exemplify why there are so many Republican candidates running for President. According to Kurt Erickson, a VHHS Government teacher, “Many of the candidates have different objectives. Trump focuses on disconnect, Cruz supports heavy right wing policies, and Bush is more traditional. A lot of the candidates also have large egos within their campaign.”

Similar to Trump, the GOP candidate Rand Paul has taken a strong stance to promote liberty, freedom, and fairness amongst all American people as a senator. He is using his campaign to publicize his opposition on the expansion of the USA Patriot Act, something he was not able to do as a senator.

The fragmented objectives of the Republican party can pose as potential problems for the election. For instance, in the election of 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton easily won the election due to an independent who split the republican votes. Ross Perot, a successful business man, decided to run as an independent conservative. Since he shared a lot of the same policies as republicans, he virtually took votes away from the GOP candidate. Rand Paul stated that this could easily happen if Trump decides to run as an independent. However, he has recently confirmed that he will not.

The size of the GOP party shows people’s unhappiness with our current government. Most of the candidates want to drastically change current policies before they turn into serious problems for the country.