The air is toxic, and it's not all coming from the Republican candidates

In a reversal of the who-wouldyou-most-like-to-have-a-drinkwith test, candidates declaring for the Republican presidential race this week presented as so singularly unappetising as to raise the question, who among them would you leave the bar to avoid? Trump is not, weirdly, at the top of this list, since, when he cares to use it, one knows his charm is considerable

- Emma Brockes

Monday 

Mike Pence, who declared his candidacy on Monday and remains enduringly weird, would definitely break the top three, although a small part of me would like to take a crack, over a beer, at figuring out what the former vice-president's deal is. The evangelical Christian's very clenched personality and eagerness to be photographed at the weekend in leathers on a Harley-Davidson, is suggestive of a range of possibilities.

Also throwing his hat into the ring this week is Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey, and for my money the least appealing candidate in the current Republican lineup, even taking into account Ron DeSantis.

Christie, you may remember, was for a hot minute in 2016 spoken of as a credible centrist Republican before everyone remembered who he was. (My favourite Christie story is the one from 2017 when he was snapped from a news helicopter enjoying a deserted beach with his family during a state-wide shutdown when the beaches were closed). In the years since, he has flip-flopped between craven appeasement and condemnation of Trump and is now running - hollow laugh - as a moral standard-bearer on the strength of his objection to the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack.

Other candidates in the race include the requisite comedy multimillionaire who has never held office - in this case, the former pharmaceutical company CEO Vivek Ramaswamy, whose manifesto seems to be the single phrase "anti-woke" - and a lone woman, the former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley.

Described by the former CNN host Don Lemon in February as a woman who "isn't in her prime", Haley, at 51, is among the youngest of the Republican candidates.