Tomorrow night will be the true kickoff to the Republican presidential primary season, as Fox hosts the first GOP presidential debate. I should mention in advance that I will be doing my usual "snap reactions" column after the debate tomorrow night, so this is my last chance to comment on things beforehand.

I thought I would run down my impressions of all the candidates who qualified for the debate, from what I have seen and heard of them so far. Some have done a better job of getting their faces out there in the media than others, which leaves for plenty of "getting to know you" moments (for me, at any rate) tomorrow night.

Anyway, without further ado -- listed in order of the strength of their polling (which will also determine how close to the center of the stage each candidate gets to stand), here are the Republican candidates who will be on stage for tomorrow night's opening GOP presidential debate:

Ron DeSantis

Ron DeSantis seems to be well on his way to becoming the Jeb Bush of the 2024 GOP primary season. He's a Florida governor popular in his own state, he was touted as the next big thing for the Republican Party, and his absolute lack of human charisma seems to have torpedoed his chances of ever becoming the nominee. It's Jeb! all over again, in other words.

DeSantis -- initially buoyed by GOP donors and rightwing media earlier this year (as the answer to save the party from Donald Trump) -- has been on a long polling slide for the past five months. His poll numbers (in the Real Clear Politics rolling average) went from 30 percent to where they stand today, at just under 15 percent. Losing half your support over the summer is not exactly someone who is catching fire with the base voters, to state the painfully obvious.

But however lackluster DeSantis has been in recent polling, he's still doing a lot better than all the other candidates not named "Donald Trump." None of the rest of them have even broken into double digits, after all. So DeSantis has two dynamics, heading into the first debate: he's got to turn his slide around with the voters by having a strong debate, and because Trump won't be there, he will be the candidate with the biggest target on his back for all the other candidates. Everyone else wants to eventually take on Trump but knows they won't get the chance until they move into second place themselves -- which means (at this point) tearing down DeSantis.

That's an awfully tall order -- both have a breakout moment or two and deflect all sorts of incoming attacks from the others on the stage. DeSantis doesn't seem to be a very natural debater (or natural orator, for that matter), so this could be a very high bar for him to hit. Especially after a massive debate prep document was discovered (and reported on) last week, which outlined several positions for DeSantis to take (e.g.: attack Vivek Ramaswamy hard, defend Trump against attacks from Chris Christie, etc.). Now, if DeSantis does attempt to do any of these, the others will call him out for being inauthentic, so he'll be walking on an even more perilous tightrope tomorrow night.

My money's still on DeSantis continuing his collapse and fading away after the GOP donor class truly gives up on him and moves on to a new favorite. You know -- just like Jeb!

Vivek Ramaswamy

When I first heard his name, my reaction was a common one, even among political geeks: "Who?" My second reaction was to wonder how to pronounce his first name (does it rhyme with "check", "cheek", or "cake"?). My third reaction was to dismiss him as a vanity candidate, some "tech bro" who had more money than political sense. Nowadays, I've moved on -- to wondering if he's actually running to be Trump's vice-presidential pick.

Ramaswamy spent a whole lot of money on a whole lot of ads, and it does seem to be paying off. His polling was way back in the pack for a very long time, but at some point around mid-July he started (slowly) climbing upwards. He made it to fourth place (behind Trump, DeSantis, and Pence) and then bested Pence before July ended. Since then, he's had a lock on third place and is the only candidate in the field (other than Trump) to recently see his numbers noticeably improve. He is now polling at 7.1 percent, and has charted a few individual polls with actual double digits. That's admittedly not much, but it's better than everyone else in the field other than Trump and DeSantis, so it's not exactly chopped liver either.

Ramaswamy has two things that most of the Republican candidates don't have: youth and charisma. He's young -- much younger than even the candidates who are running as a younger alternative to Trump. And his speaking style is energetic and smooth (at least, what I have seen of it). His rise in the polling has opened the doors to a lot of (free) media coverage in the past month or so, and he's been using it to good advantage (for the most part).

Ramaswamy does tend to come across as rather glib, with a political outsider's eagerness to embrace very simple-sounding solutions that could prove to be disastrous. But hey, that actually worked wonders for Donald Trump (and it almost did the same for Herman "9-9-9" Cain, earlier).

So far, Ramaswamy refuses to say anything bad about Donald Trump, which is why I kind of wonder whether he's truly running for Trump's veep slot. He says he isn't (he swears he would turn it down), but then again everyone says that -- right up until they say yes to the offer.

Ramaswamy will be the focus of attacks on stage, either from DeSantis (à la his debate-prep memo) or more likely from the pack which hovers below him in the polling (since Ramaswamy is the only one of them who has caught even a little fire with the voters somehow, for anyone else to advance he'll have to be taken down a peg or two).

I could see Vivek Ramaswamy actually having a breakout moment or two during the debate, though -- which is more than I can say for a lot of these folks. If he does, his polling numbers could jump upwards even faster and people will start talking about him as a replacement for DeSantis -- which is exactly what Ramaswamy wants to have happen.

Mike Pence

The big question on everyone's mind tomorrow night is, of course: "Will Mike Pence bring his pet fly to the debate?"

[Ahem. Sorry... couldn't resist. It's just so easy to take cheap shots at Mike Pence!]

Mike Pence seems to be the most delusional of all the Republican candidates running for president (and that is really saying something!). Half of the party's base voters consider Pence a traitor (for not somehow magically handing Trump the 2020 election in the Senate), and the other half consider him a traitor for all his enabling of Trump right up to that point.

Perhaps that's overstating it. In reality, Mike Pence is as dull as ditchwater. That's his gigantic drawback as a politician. You look at him and you want to go to sleep.

His soporific style aside, Pence appears to believe that God told him to run and that God would somehow part the waters and hand him the presidency, no doubt with angels singing in the background. Such true-believer evangelicals are always rather frightening to most non-evangelical people, meaning even if Pence somehow was granted his miracle and got the GOP nomination, he would get crushed by Joe Biden in the general.

Pence is strongly defending his actions on January 6th, and has even gone as far as (gasp!) stating that Trump was wrong to do what he did after he lost the election. That is a big step, for Pence. It's also a step not every Republican candidate has been willing to take, so I have to at least give him credit for that. But not many GOP voters are giving him credit for much of anything -- he's dropped from third to fourth place in the polling and his numbers have been heading down for over a month (he's currently polling at only 4.3 percent). One thing for certain with Pence, though, is that he is not running to be Trump's veep pick. Even he must know that is an impossibility, right?

The other easy betting money for tomorrow night is that Mike Pence does not catch fire with anyone, period. The only way he'll likely have a "breakout moment" is if another fly lands on his hair at some point during the debate.

Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley has not caught fire with much of anybody either, although the same could be said for everyone from this point on down in this list (to be fair). She had previously been polling strong enough to be challenging Mike Pence's hold on third place, and for a very brief time at the end of May she actually bested him. But since that point, her numbers have not just been flat, but heading slowly downward. Currently she is hanging on to fifth place in the polling, but only just (Chris Christie and Tim Scott are both within 0.3 points of catching her).

Haley, more than anyone other than perhaps Tim Scott, will have one major audience she'll be playing to tomorrow night: big GOP donors. If she can manage to have a breakout moment, she could convince some of the big-money folks to jump from backing DeSantis to backing her instead. Such an infusion of money might propel her poll numbers back up again, although this is all pure speculation.

Haley is reluctant to criticize Trump, having served in his cabinet, and has adopted a more "let's look forward not backward" tone to any comments she does make about him. Also, she is a woman and a minority candidate (the only Republican woman running, in fact). But the right generally sneers at "identity politics," so it is doubtful this will help her in any way at all, with the base voters. She also seems like she would jump at the chance to be named Trump's veep pick -- he already previously picked her for his cabinet, and she always managed to avoid his wrath much better than some of his other cabinet picks.

Haley seems to be vying for the "just like Trump, but without the baggage" lane, but then again so are a lot of other candidates. But if she doesn't manage a breakout moment or two she could continue her slide into obscurity.

Chris Christie

Chris Christie is, of course, the main candidate liberals and progressives will be cheering for tomorrow night. It's doubtful many Republicans watching will have the same reaction, but if there are any fireworks to be had tomorrow night, it's even odds or better that Christie will be in the middle of them.

Christie, of course, ran for president in 2016. He had a schtick -- the brash New Jersey politician who told it like it was, threw insults around with abandon, didn't care what the audience thought, and bullied everyone into seeing things his way. He was Trump before there was Trump, to put it another way. But then Trump rode down his golden escalator and Christie became only a pale shadow of Trump's schtick -- a brash New Yorker who told it like it was, used the most scathing insults that can even be imagined, didn't care one whit what anybody thought, and bullied everyone into seeing things his way.

Maybe Christie should have sued Trump for trademark infringement, or something. But once Christie was eclipsed by Trump's even-more-outrageous iteration of his chosen political persona, he had a choice to make -- either fight Trump as hard as he could to prevent him from being elected, or join the Trump train in the hopes of riding it to better things. Christie obviously chose the latter. He was one of the first big GOP names to endorse Trump during the 2016 race, in fact.

Now, of course, Christie is Trump's biggest scourge. Christie has reworked his persona in a very targeted way: he is the New Jersey politician who tells it like it is about Trump. He thoroughly enjoys tossing insults at Trump. He doesn't care what anyone thinks about what he says about Trump. He will try to bully everyone else on the stage into agreeing with him about Trump.

He's essentially a one-trick pony, and the Republican base is not exactly a big fan of his one trick (to put it mildly). But Christie is the heat-seeking anti-Trump guided missile in the race, which is why it'll be so entertaining to see him rip into Trump tomorrow night (look for Christie to use words such as "coward" and maybe even "chicken" to taunt Trump for not showing up). Christie is quick as a whip in terms of thinking on his feet during a heated debate, and Christie is also (like Trump) not above using playground insults and snide dismissive language in the political arena. Which is, of course, exactly what all the liberals and progressives will be watching for (it's always entertaining on the left to see righties savage each other).

Which is all why it's a pretty safe bet that if there are any truly explosive moments tomorrow night, Christie will be the one lighting the fuse.

Tim Scott

Tim Scott seems to definitely be running to be Trump's veep choice. Scott's political persona might be described as "cheerfully optimistic conservatism," which harkens back to an earlier time in Republican politics (it certainly worked well for Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, after all). Also, Scott wears his religion on his sleeve -- which goes over big in his home state of South Carolina. He's hoping these two things will also go over big in Iowa, where a good showing might launch his campaign out of being mired in the back of the pack.

If Tim Scott has any sort of debate moment at all, it will likely be a very positive and forward-looking one. It won't be for an attack line directed at someone else, to put this another way. But I somehow doubt that sunny optimism is really the thing Republican voters are looking for, this time around.

Doug Burgum

"Who?"

Seriously, who is this guy? He looks and sounds like he stepped out of Central Casting for some political movie about a politician with rugged looks and a plain-speaking manner.

Burgum will (more than even the others) be desperately seeking a breakout moment tomorrow night -- something along the lines of: "Now everybody will recognize my name!" But I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

Asa Hutchinson

"Who?"

Well, Hutchinson's been at least talked about in the media (a lot more than Burgum), so we will admit that we actually recognize his name.

Hutchinson (and Burgum) just barely squeaked in to the first debate, and barring any standout performances tomorrow night, will likely not make it to the second debate. Hutchinson's role tomorrow night will be tag-team support for Chris Christie, since Hutchinson is the only other GOP candidate (who will appear tomorrow) who is openly willing to directly (and scathingly) challenge Trump. Indeed, Hutchinson has been calling on Trump to just drop out of the race for months now, since in Hutchinson's eyes all of Trump's indictments (and the alleged crimes they cover) absolutely disqualifies Trump from being the Republican presidential nominee.

Sadly, such common sense is anathema to most Republican voters. So, much more than Christie, if there is a breakout moment involving Hutchinson, it'll probably come from someone else on the stage ripping into him over his views on Trump.

Conclusion

Of course, there's a mixed metaphor that will be popping up tomorrow (I don't claim originality for this one, I've already seen it being used), since there will be one enormous Republican elephant not in the room tomorrow night: frontrunner Donald Trump.

Trump has stated in unequivocal terms that he won't be showing up tomorrow night. But then who knows? Maybe he'll surprise everyone and show up anyway! With Trump, one just never knows....

Assuming he doesn't, though, he's still going to (metaphorically) be at center stage throughout the night. Trump's lead is so massive right now (he is polling over 40 points ahead of DeSantis) that he simply cannot be ignored.

But because Trump has such a wide grip on his party's base (extending beyond the MAGA core of perhaps 35 percent of the Republican voters), all the other candidates are faced with the conundrum of how to take Trump down without insulting him too much. The path to beating Trump has to include convincing a whole bunch of people who are currently supporting him to switch horses, to put this another way. And trashing him will disqualify a candidate with a lot of these voters. So most of the candidates on the stage (other than Christie and Hutchinson) will be handling the subject of Trump with kid gloves. "More in sorrow than in anger, we've got to move on from Trump if we want to win," will likely be the go-to sentiment for most of the candidates.

Trump's absence automatically means tomorrow night's debate will be no more than the "undercard" debate -- although not quite at the level of the "kiddie-table" debates we saw in 2015 (when there were just too many GOP candidates to fit onto one stage. Shots will be taken at Trump, but Trump won't be there to have them land. The rest of the candidates will all be vying for the opportunity to have that magic breakout moment which propels them sharply upwards in the polls. Ron DeSantis, once seen as the inevitable final challenger to Trump (in a one-on-one contest at the end of the race), now seems eminently beatable by the others. It wouldn't take all that much of a bump (and all that much of the continuation of DeSantis's polling slide) to vault someone else into second place right now.

Personally, I am laying in popcorn supplies for the extravaganza. Let the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race truly begin!

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant