The rate at which candidates are joining the race for the Republican nomination for next year’s Presidential election, it will not be long before the party will need a bus to ferry all of them.

The person who will be delighted with this turn of events is of course former President Donald Trump. For as the numbers of those arraigned against him increases, and as these candidates divide the votes of the Republicans who disagree with him, the beneficiary will be Mr. Trump, who is already the frontrunner for the nomination.

Mr. Trump knows well the advantages of contesting against a large field; he had secured the 2016 nomination for precisely this reason. By the end of this week, there are likely to be at least nine other contenders in the fray, and observers believe that at least some of them may have chosen to throw their hat into the ring with a view to helping the former President. Indeed, a straight fight between two or at the most three candidates would have sharpened the focus on Mr. Trump’s own candidature and the many infirmities it suffers from, including his involvement in the Capitol riots and the finding of a New York court awarding damages to a woman who alleged she was the victim of his sexual advances.

In the event, and on present form, it seems the Republicans will be sending back to the Presidential battle a man deeply scarred by his previous stint in the White House, one whose record at the helm is far from encouraging. The unfortunate aspect of the expanded Republican field is that many of Mr. Trump’s opponents have made compelling arguments against his candidature.

Had these arguments been channelized in a straight contest, they may have had different consequences. For instance, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and former Vice-President have assailed Mr. Trump for congratulating North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on his county’s election to the executive board of the World Health Organisation. Describing Mr. Kim as a thug, Ms. Haley said dictators ought not to be congratulated. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie who lost to Mr. Trump in 2016 has attacked the former President on multiple counts, including the increasing number of criminal investigations he faces, his repeated claims of election fraud, and for being “Putin’s puppet” for his stance on the war in Ukraine.

The other reason for Mr. Trump’s delight at the size of the field is that it allows him an excuse to skip some of the televised debates that help voters make up their minds. He has already indicated he will do so, suggesting he is disinclined to waste his time crossing swords with low-polling opponents. If he is asked to defend himself against the many charges he faces in a structured debate, the former President will find himself on a