In a movie, Ryan Binkley would be storming towards the presidency.
At more than 6ft tall, with a strong jaw and an athletic physique, Binkley looks the quintessential Hollywood vision of a political leader. The long-shot Republican candidate for president wears well-cut suits and has a full head of dark brown hair. He has a lovely set of teeth, nice shiny shoes, and he smells nice.
But Binkley’s problem? No one knows who he is.
The Texan, a pastor and co-founder of a financial services company, has spent more than $8m of his own money on his quixotic presidential campaign. He has been running for president for more than nine months: three-quarters of a year spent in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The sum total of his efforts so far has been almost zero attention from US media, a lot of puzzlement when he introduces himself to people, and 774 votes in Iowa.
On Thursday night Binkley strode confidently into one of his political events, held in a back room of a bar in Manchester, New Hampshire. There was a broad grin fixed on his face, and his right palm was pre-extended, ready to shake the hands of potential voters.
That didn’t take long. Only two people had turned up. And they weren’t eligible to vote in New Hampshire.
“You know, I’ve been to meetings with one person in it,” Binkley said. “It’s disheartening sometimes, but you know, you do it 200 times and you get used to it.”
Binkley is trying to sell people his version of Republicanism: budget balancing and small government, with a heavy dash of Christianity-inspired social conservatism. It’s the faith bit that inspired Binkley to run for president.
“I am a business owner, I’m a pastor,” he said.
“And God spoke to me many years ago about this. It became increasingly clear that he had a message for our country that … I think is this: we are so far in debt, we’re at a precipice. Something’s coming financially that we’re not ready for. I don’t know what it is.”
It would be unfair to paint Binkley as solely a religious candidate – even if his campaign literature stresses that one of his aims is “restoring trust in God and each other”.
Binkley has a plan to balance the US budget, and would rein in health insurance companies so Americans can receive better medical care. If elected president, he would “focus on people truly struggling financially”, he said, by improving education and offering job training.
Binkley has a proper written-out platform, and can talk at length about his ideas. But there’s no one listening.
As the event in Manchester continued it took on a tragicomic air. His sole member of staff had ambitiously laid out Binkley baseball caps, T-shirts and signs, and there was food and an open bar.
But only four more people showed up, and only one of them lived in New Hampshire and was actually eligible to vote. He wasn’t fully sold on Binkley.
“There’s so many candidates that are coming in and out of the race, you just kind of have to see what’s available the day of. It’s like going to the market. I maintain an open mind,” said Jason Barabas. He’s a professor of government at Dartmouth College, an Ivy League university in New Hampshire, and there was a sense that he was there as an anthropological exercise.
“New Hampshire is famously independent, people really like to meet candidates,” Barabas said when asked about Binkley’s chances.
“So a lot of New Hampshire voters will appreciate this exact moment, which is he’s coming to New Hampshire trying to meet with voters. I think that’s going to be really impactful for a lot of people.”
Binkley’s event was competing against a trivia night taking place in the main bar. Once that had finished, Binkley’s campaign staffer, a pleasant person apparently well-practiced in remaining positive, went round to try to lure people to Binkley’s event. But not even the open bar could tempt a crowd that had largely never heard of the candidate.
“I just looked him up. He’s this guy,” said one woman triumphantly, after the Guardian pointed at Binkley and asked if she knew who he was.
Did she plan to vote for him?
“Probably not, no. I don’t even know his party affiliation.”
The next day, at the Red Arrow Diner, a must-visit location for presidential candidates whose walls are adorned with photos of politicians including Binkley’s rivals Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, there was a bit more success.
No one was at the diner specifically to meet Binkley, but he seemed to get on well with the smattering of people eating their lunch. A huddle of female staff were impressed too.
“He’s so handsome!” one worker said as Binkley loitered at the end of the counter.
“Who is he?”
Binkley, a high school football star who has an MBA from Southern Methodist University, may have made his money in finance, but it is Create church, the Christian church he co-founded with his wife, Ellie, that appears to be his passion. Housed in a gigantic building just north of Dallas, it’s the kind of modern American church where a band plays electric guitars and keyboards on stage, and parishioners raise both hands in the air and close their eyes as they pray.
It is going to take a lot of prayer for Binkley to have a breakout moment on Tuesday, even if his goals for the primary are almost upsettingly low.
At the diner, he giddily pointed out that a New Hampshire poll released on Wednesday has him polling four points behind Ron DeSantis, but he failed to mention that the poll had DeSantis at just 6%, and Binkley at 2% of the vote – with a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.
“Man, if I could get 2 or 3%, and keep moving up in the polls, that’d be a win for me,” he said.
To Binkley’s mind, 3% of the vote here, after the 0.7% he won in Iowa, would represent a sort of rolling progress that could see him win exposure and support. But in any case, for this unknown, religious, good-looking, would-be president, the decision on whether to stay in the race is out of his hands.
“I feel like our message will connect,” Binkley said.
“And I’m keep standing until it’s heard, and until I feel like God tells me to hang up the cleats.”
