The front-runner is the person or thing most likely to succeed in a competition — an election, a race for a job, a prize, even a new product. The picture comes from sport: the runner, or the horse, who is already out in front. Newspapers love the word; it is not very formal and not very slangy, just the ordinary way to say the one everyone expects to come first. There can be two front-runners if two people look equally strong. Though actually, being the front-runner is not the same as having already won. People at the front still lose.