The polls have been swinging back and forth, but is there a clear leader who can realistically win as a general election candidate amongst the nominees for the Republicans?

There has been a lot of coverage for Donald Trump and his campaign to win the Republican presidential nomination, but he's not the only one in the race.

Far from it, in fact, as the Grand Old Party (GOP) has a plethora of candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds that highlights the uniformity and perhaps even the bland nature of the Democratic hopefuls.

Out of all of the names in the hat, which candidates have a realistic chance of making the cut in the primaries? 

Jeb Bush

There's no doubt that Bush is part of a political dynasty, and would be the third of his family to hold the office were he to be able to make his way to the White House. 

Bush has been attacked by the other candidates for being too "liberal" and, as Trump has regularly said, low energy, but he still has managed to raise a large amount of money to give his campaign legs as well as looking strong when it comes to garnering endorsements. 

Although he originally started out wanting to distance himself from his family name, falling numbers and a campaign that has been described as being in a "death spiral" by one of his own backers have caused him to reverse course on that policy. He's drafted in his brother in an attempt to appeal to members of the Republican party that still believe that George W. Bush was a strong president who led the US through a very difficult time as he looks for new ways to gain support for his faltering run. 

After last week's GOP debate though, he needed a big moment to kick his campaign into gear in the minds of the public, and he didn't get it. Despite all his skill on the political side of getting endorsements, he simply is not popular and Trump's attacks have taken their toll, painting him as a weak candidate and badly affecting his poll numbers. He's the moderates' choice, and with characters like Trump, Carson and Rubio on the podium, that's not going to get him very far.

Donald Trump

In case you've missed all the headlines, Trump is running for the Republican nomination, and is ruffling plenty of feathers along the way. His policies (or at least the fantastical plans he speaks about in public) include building a giant wall around Mexico, tough immigration reform, a tax plan that includes $10 trillion in cuts but still balances the books, and an overall desire to 'Make America Great Again'.

A large part of his appeal is based on the fact that he does not come from a traditional political background, as the other candidates do. He's free of all the wranglings of inter-party politics, of needing to be careful with what he says so that he doesn't annoy the leadership, and he can, to a large extent, do whatever the hell he wants. And the people are eating it up. 

Well, a certain portion of them are anyway, and while he's seen as joke character on the left and a headline generator by the media, his persistently high poll numbers are beginning to show that he could actually have enough name recognition and support from the party's grassroots voters to win in a general election.

Even if he doesn't get the nomination and decides to bow out, his blessing could be crucial to whoever secures the nod from the GOP. As Rachel Maddow somewhat jokingly puts it, he's managed to place himself in the perfect position and manufacture a "genius" deal for himself. 

Marco Rubio

As time goes on, Rubio is beginning to look like perhaps the best candidate for the middle ground when it comes to the way the party (and the candidates) have splintered. The grassroots wants someone who is similar to Trump in their desire to turn the usual politics of Washington on its head, but there still needs to be an understanding of how to get things done so that the day-to-day governing of the country doesn't grind to a halt. 

Rubio represents that thanks to the fact that when he originally arrived in Washington as the senator from Florida, he came in on a wave of Tea Party support and therefore ticks the conservative box in the party. He also has a "narrative" (as misused as that term is) to his career which includes coming from humble beginnings as a Cuban immigrant whose father was a bartender and whose mother was a maid, making him the epitome of the American dream. 

Image: Mark J. Terrill / AP/Press Association Images

However, he's a politician through and through and his performance at the debate in late October proved that he was well able to handle questions over his record of missing a lot of votes in the Senate and turning it against Bush, who tried and failed to attack him on the issue. He similarly batted away questions over financial mismanagement of his campaign funds and instead blamed bias in the "mainstream media", skilfully avoiding the question like someone who was born to never give substantive answers to any tricky questions.

That ability to slip away and hide behind layers of spin might be his downfall eventually, but for now his narrative of America not being able to afford another president like Obama is making headway both with the voters as well as within the party. 

Ben Carson

Striking the balance between being an "every man" that people would like to have a beer with and being an incredibly high achiever with a flawless record is a difficult one to strike, but it's one that is pivotal in the campaign. You've got to be so great that people have confidence that you can run the entire country, but not so great that you make people feel stupid.

The soft-spoken (so much so that he borders on soporific) neurosurgeon might have been considered too "brainy" to fit in that category, but he seems to be winning a lot of support from the more conservative sections of the GOP as a result of his statements about America's culture of political correctness and his position on abortion. 

His penchant for making strange statements about things being "worse than slavery", "worse than 9/11" or comparing America to Nazi Germany would probably hurt any other candidate (well, maybe not Trump), but they actually help his poll numbers precisely because he's causing a somewhat predictable reaction from the mainstream media who roundly criticise him, something that has been a big focus for all the GOP candidates in recent weeks, in particular at the debate in late October.

Image: Charlie Neibergall / AP/Press Association Images

Whether or not that's on purpose is another issue, but it has seen him jump in the polls to suddenly being alongside Trump. While there's no significant talk of a joint ticket yet (perhaps Trump's ego wouldn't allow for it) Carson is dominating the evangelical vote, and scooping up the female voters that have turned away from Trump for his comments on women, or his strange attack on Fox's Megyn Kelly. 

Whether those voters are enough to see him through in a general election is another question entirely, but for now his success is yet another indication that there is a serious desire from a large part of the Republican party to see their candidates say and do things that would normally be considered out of bounds. 

Ted Cruz

Terrible impressions of Winston Churchill aside, Cruz has hung in the race long enough that he now also looks well placed to pick up Jeb Bush's castoff votes. He is the only other candidate in double digits in the polls and is similarly popular among evangelical voters in the same way that Carson is, which is possibly where his share of support is more likely to come from.

He grabbed plenty of headlines with his performance in the most recent debate in which he attacked CNBC and the mainstream media for their treatment of the Republican candidates when it comes to the lack of substantive questions being asked, albeit in an effort to avoid answering a substantive question on the debt ceiling. 

Cruz, like many of the Republican candidates, has given precious little detail on actual policies, although he did advocate a return to the gold standard of sorts in the third debate and is most certainly a skeptic when it comes to climate change. 

That might just be the magic combination of ideals that will consolidate that part of the Republican party behind Cruz on the political side, and there's little doubt that he is charismatic enough to allay any fears that he would be as bland as Jeb Bush. His record as being a consistent conservative when it comes to social issues like abortion and gay marriage, as well as the fact that he is now the Tea Party favourite, means he can count on support from the conservative wing of the GOP.

Already on the way up in the polls before a strong performance in the October debate, he might just have timed his run perfectly.