in the (something) stakes

In regard to having a large or adequate amount of some characteristic or trait. He's an incredibly talented artist, but there's quite a bit lacking in the human decency stakes. For my money, they have the single best operating system of any phone on the market, but they're so far behind in the popularity stakes with consumers that there's no way they can stay competitive. Like a lot of really smart people, she's not much in the common sense stakes.

in the... stakes

used to say how much of a particular quality a person has, as if they were in a competition in which some people are more successful than others: John doesn’t do too well in the personality stakes.