Since I know next to nothing about macroeconomics, I don't feel qualified to comment on today's news that the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates another 0.25 percent. They indicated that this will be the last one for a while, and inflation has already come down dramatically without crumbling the rest of the economy, but the future (as always) is uncertain. That's about the most intelligent commentary I can offer up on the matter.

Instead, let's take a look at how the Republican field of candidates for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination is shaping up. Because it seems certain that the number of candidates actually in the race is going to soon expand.

First, let's review who has already thrown their hat in the ring. Donald Trump was the first to announce, and remains the clear frontrunner (by a whopping margin). There are three other candidates that I would call serious (or at least semi-serious) who have also made campaign-launch announcements: Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, and Tim Scott. Scott has not formally launched his campaign, but he did make a "pre-launch announcement," so it's only a matter of time before he formally files his paperwork. There are also two gadfly candidates running: Larry Elder and Vivek Ramaswamy. They do not (at least currently) have any chance whatsoever of winning, so they're not worth more than a passing mention here. Of the two, Ramaswamy could eventually prove this dismissive categorization wrong, but it would surprise me if he did.

Of the candidates still waiting on the sidelines, one already has national name recognition, but in Mike Pence's case that may not turn out to be the positive it normally would. Pence desperately wants to be president, but Republican voters are not exactly falling in love with him. Half of them still blame Pence for not somehow magically making Donald Trump president on January 6th, and most of the other half are unimpressed with Pence for various other reasons. But it seems almost certain that Pence is indeed going to run.

There is a subset of Republicans who are currently busy with state business, as they are all sitting governors dealing with the end of their states' legislative sessions. This includes the biggest name who remains officially unannounced, Florida's Ron DeSantis. Also possibly in the mix are New Hampshire's Chris Sununu and North Dakota's Kristi Noem. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is another possibility, but something of a longshot (he doesn't seem to be actively making any moves to run, unlike Sununu and Noem).

Chris Christie, who was previously governor of New Jersey, recently made some campaign news, when he told interviewer Hugh Hewitt the following (when asked about his plans): "I will make a decision in the next two weeks." This was immediately after he slammed Trump for hinting that he might not even show up at the first two Republican debates. Here's what Christie had to say about that notion:

[A]nybody who's serious about wanting to be president of the United States should be on the stage for every one of [the Republican debates]. And you know, look, they say that presidential campaigns are an X-ray of the soul for the people who are running. Well, those debates are an MRI, because you can't, if the questions are good -- pre-scripted answers are not always working. And it's a human interaction, Hugh. And you see how people respond on their feet. And that's very important for any executive, because you know, the presidency is not a scripted exercise. And so that's why I think debates are important, and I think we should participate in them. And to the extent that President Trump doesn't want to participate in them, people should wonder why. And I think it's because he doesn't have a lot of serious answers for the problems that are facing the country right now. All he wants to do is go back and re-prosecute the 2020 election because his feelings are hurt. He's a child in that regard, and he should....

Here Hewitt interrupted Christie to point out that Trump was leading in the polls by 30-40 points, and so it might make political sense for him to blow the first debates off. Christie responded:

Because this is about letting the American people decide who's best prepared to be president. This is not running for student body president. And if he really cares about the country, and I have deep questions about that, but if he really cares about the country, then he's going to get up there, and he shouldn't be afraid. I'm sorry to see that Donald Trump feels like if he gets on the stage, he's at risk of losing his lead. If, in fact, his ideas are so great, if his leadership is so outstanding, then his lead will only increase if he gets on the stage, not decrease. But obviously, he's afraid. He's afraid to get on the stage against people who are serious. And I'm sorry to see that he's that afraid of it. If he's that afraid of that, how can we count on him to do any better with President Xi than the failures he had in his first term with China? How can we expect him to do any better with Putin than having set the groundwork for the invasion of Ukraine, which his conduct towards Putin certainly helped to establish? This is a guy who seems like he's afraid. And if he's afraid, he has no business being president.

I don't know about you, but to me that certainly sounds like a man who is going to challenge Donald Trump. And that "within two weeks" sounds like he's not only made up his mind, but is already busily preparing his own launch event.

Part of all this is driven by that debate schedule. The first debate will be held in August, which isn't all that far away. And there will be criteria for appearing on the stage, one of which will be raising money from a certain minimum number of donors. Getting 30,000 or 40,000 people to give money to your campaign (this number is not set, but could reportedly be within that range) takes some time and effort, so Christie is likely not the only Republican to be considering making an announcement this month.

The only Republican who has made any sort of splash in the polls at all (so far) has been DeSantis. At his high point, DeSantis was within about 15 points of Trump (roughly 30 percent to Trump's 45 percent), but his numbers have been heading downwards ever since Trump started actively attacking him. DeSantis is now down at least 30 points to Trump, and may never recover (even if he does get a slight bounce from his official announcement).

Nobody else is even close. Everyone else (announced and unannounced) is in the low single digits. Only Pence is currently above five percent, and Nikki Haley is the only other one who has ever made it above that rather low mark (before sinking back below it). Of course, few people are really paying attention now, so those polls could change dramatically once the debates actually do start happening. But as things stand, Trump is polling comfortably above 50 percent.

There is an ideological void in the race, however. So far, no Republican candidate has announced who is willing to actually run against Donald Trump. DeSantis is trying to "out-Trump Trump," or be seen as a more competent version of Trump who actually has a better chance of winning. The only announced candidate who even hints at attacking Trump so far is Hutchinson, and he's been pretty timid in this regard.

Christie and/or Sununu could change this by getting in the race. Both men have shown they are unafraid to take on Trump's weaknesses directly and forcefully. There are two other possible candidate who have to be seen as longshots who could also fill this void: John Bolton and former Representative Will Hurd. Hurd, in an interview with Fox "News," was pretty blunt in his assessment of the situation: "The GOP will continue to lose to Democrats if Donald Trump is the nominee.... I’m not satisfied with the field as it stands right now. No one is taking on Trump effectively, or presenting a vision for the future." The article also points out: "Hurd will return later this month for his third visit this year to New Hampshire," so he's got to be at least seriously considering a run of his own. I should mention that there are a few other longshot candidates who could announce as well, including Liz Cheney and possibly even Tucker Carlson (who seems to be "between jobs" at the moment).

Up until this point, the conventional political wisdom has been that jumping into the Republican nomination race early had little upside and one very big possible downside: attracting the wrath of Trump. But Trump (so far) has shown little interest in attacking his rivals, other than the one (DeSantis) who has shown any movement at all in the polling. Trump hasn't bothered to denigrate Haley or Hutchinson or Scott, because he has no real reason to -- they don't currently pose any kind of threat to him. Mike Pence is a special case, obviously, since Trump is still carrying a huge grudge that Pence didn't somehow just anoint him president after the 2020 election. But there just hasn't been any stormfront of Trump rage facing any of the other candidates so far.

As I said, the Republican debate schedule is really the driving force right now, as is the fact that if candidates wait too long they will struggle to put together a top-notch campaign team (all the big advisors and consultants and pollsters will be working for other candidates, in other words) or to attract major donors (for the same reason -- they'll already be committed to others). Which means the rest of this month will almost certainly see the Republican field expand in a big way -- perhaps even double in size. Whether any of them actually catch fire with the GOP voters is a big open question. Even if the field does double, it could still consist of a whole bunch of people polling below five percent. But the clock is ticking and soon prospective candidates' main worry won't be about jumping in too soon, but rather too late.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant