While President Trump is facing murmurs of a primary challenge – as well as a massive field of Democratic candidates jockeying to take him on – the incumbent president enters the 2020 melee with an undeniable advantage: a war chest that would be the envy of any modern president.

Unlike most incumbents, Trump started his re-election bid on day one of his presidency. He filed papers with the Federal Election Commission within hours of being inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017. Many saw it as a comical – albeit in character – step for the audacious Trump. Yet, by doing so he was able to raise huge sums of money four years before the election.

According to recent FEC data, the Trump campaign has raised over $67 million from 2017 to 2018, with nearly $20 million on hand. Combined with the hauls from two major joint fundraising groups – Trump Victory and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee – the president has raised over $130 million as of the end of 2018, with over $35 million on hand.

By contrast, former President Barack Obama had raised only $4 million in the first two years of his presidency and didn’t file for re-election until April 2011. Former President George W. Bush had raised $3 million by the end of his second year in office and filed for re-election in May 2003.

Despite the fundraising totals, the president still faces serious election challenges. His approval rating has remained stagnant in the mid-40s, with the latest Fox News poll showing him at 46 percent. The 2018 midterms had historically high participation and enthusiasm on the Democratic side, which helped the party flip the House.

These vulnerabilities have led some Republicans to think there’s room for a primary challenge. Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland has done several interviews insinuating that he’s interested in a run.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, meanwhile, has already formed an exploratory committee, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said that Republicans deserve “a choice” in 2020.

But Trump’s cash would stand as a sizeable deterrent to any Republican hoping to start a primary bid from scratch – while going up against not only his war chest but the GOP establishment.

Analysts say while there are obvious vulnerabilities for Trump, particularly if Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team concludes their investigation with incriminating evidence, they do not see a clear way forward for a primary challenger.

Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who also chairs the conservative CivicForumPac, said the party is committed to win and they see Trump as their path to victory.

“There are two chances that Trump won’t be the nominee -- and they are slim and none and slim has already left town,” said O’Connell.

Democrats, of course, hope none of this dissuades primary challengers from jumping in.

Read more from Sally Persons at Fox News

U.S. President Donald Trump will test his ability to persuade his staunchly anti-establishment political base to get behind Republican incumbents when he wades into a bitter U.S. Senate fight in Alabama on Friday. 

Trump is scheduled to campaign in Huntsville, Alabama, for Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed to his seat after Jeff Sessions was named Trump’s Attorney General. 

Strange is trying to ward off a challenge from Roy Moore, a conservative former state Supreme Court justice, in a runoff election next week. 

“Will be in Alabama tonight. Luther Strange has gained mightily since my endorsement, but will be very close. He loves Alabama, and so do I!” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter early Friday. 

A win by Moore in Alabama could embolden other insurgent candidates to challenge Republican incumbents in next year’s congressional elections.

“A lot of people love Trump and love Roy Moore,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who has worked for Strange in Alabama.

Read more from James Oliphant at Reuters

As President Trump stumbled through a rocky month of staffing upheaval, controversy, and public feuds, hypothetical talk of replacing him as the Republican nominee for president in 2020 has grown louder despite the improbability of the prospect.

No sitting president in the modern era has been replaced during his re-election race by a challenger from within his own party. While some have faced primary challenges — Ronald Reagan mounted a strong challenge against Gerald Ford in 1976, Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter in 1980, and Pat Buchanan ran against George H.W. Bush in 1992 — none have succumbed to those intra-party challengers.

But several high-profile Republicans speculated openly this week someone other than Trump could represent Republicans on the 2020 ticket.

"Since 1900, 20 presidents have sought re-election and of those, 15 have won and five have lost. So basically, he's the favorite right now even with the numbers the way they are," said Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist. "The only question is whether he chooses not to run again and that's it."

Tony Fabrizio, Trump's campaign pollster, shared a poll on Wednesday that also found Trump holding major leads over Cruz and Kasich in a 2020 primary. Sen. Ben Sasse, a prominent GOP critic of Trump, commanded just 1 percent of the vote in the hypothetical primary contest. 

Read more from Sarah Westwood at the Washington Examiner

Re-Posted From The Daily Caller

Only two candidates are slated to be on the 2012 Virginia Republican presidential primary ballot. The mainstream media is choosing to frame this predicament as evidence of which GOP candidates are running “serious” campaigns and which are not. But this media-driven narrative largely misses the mark.

The real loser in this ordeal is likely to be the eventual GOP presidential nominee.

From the outset, Mitt Romney has been the front-runner for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. Now the former Massachusetts Governor finds himself entangled in a real dog fight with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Could Romney trip like Hilary Clinton did in 2008? Politico's Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman weigh in:

For Mitt Romney this December, it’s beginning to look a lot like Clinton.

Like the great, fallen front-runner of 2008, here is another well-funded, Establishment-blessed, presumptive nominee whose supposedly firm hold on his party’s greatest prize seems to be slip-sliding away.

There are differences to be sure, most centrally that Romney has yet to face a Barack Obama-like, central foe (though Newt Gingrich is now auditioning convincingly for that role) but instead has fought a series of rear-guard actions against a series of candidates-of-the-moment.

But the similarities, particularly to veterans of Hillaryland circa 2008, are remarkable.

Romney may have had to fight off frontal assaults from a series of foes - Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Gingrich - but he has not had to counter what the Clinton team came to view as the Kennedyesque, once-in-a-generation political skills of Obama.

Romney may well be the Clinton of 2012 – but allies argue that Clinton would have beaten a candidate with Gingrich’s organization, a boast that may bode well for the former Massachusetts governor.

“What failed for Hillary still might work for Mitt,” said one former Clinton supporter. “The GOP race in 2012 is far more volatile, and Gingrich is especially prone to self-destruction, so Mitt’s ‘Last Man Standing’ strategy might work. There was never a realistic chance that Obama would self-destruct: nothing in his record or rhetoric or background or temperament. Newt is the opposite.”

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is invoking a new campaign tactic - he is portraying himself as the underdog in the battle for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. Politico's Mike Allen has more:

Mitt Romney, who just a month ago had hoped to seal the GOP presidential nomination with Florida’s primary on Jan. 31, tells POLITICO that he now foresees an epic fight with Newt Gingrich that could last through the California primary on June 5.

Asked if the former House speaker is the front-runner, Romney replied bluntly: “He is right now.”

Romney made it clear that he would rather lose than make incendiary charges about Gingrich that could help President Barack Obama in the general election. And the former Massachusetts governor said the nomination “is not going to be decided in just a couple of contests” and “could go for months and months.”

“It’s a very fluid electorate. I think I’ll get the nomination. I can’t predict when. … I’ve got — what? — five or six more months to go to make that a reality.”

Romney said he thinks he “would be more successful in posting up against Barack Obama” than Gingrich, but did not rule out the possibility that Gingrich could beat Obama.