Just about everybody thinks so–believes Jeb’s campaign is deader than a Dickens’ coffin nail. I’m inclined to agree. The only one who is projecting a sunny optimism about his chances is, well, Jeb. But it’s worth taking a look at under just what circumstances he could survive through to the GOP convention.  This will depend, in the first instance, entirely on the amount of oxygen sucked up by the two current front runners, Trump and Cruz–which will determine whether a third “establishment” lane opens up at all in this nomination process. But before getting into a deeper discussion on that score, let’s illustrate just how unprecedented a real run at the money would be at this point for Brother Bush the Younger.

Here are the polling figures for Jeb compared to the last two GOP nominees, synchronized to reflect days before and after Iowa.  Now it’s true that both the McCain and Romney campaigns lingered in the middling doldrums for a considerable amount of time before finally finding their wings. But by Iowa at least they were both polling over twenty percent.Jeb hasn’t cracked 10% this year. In fact, for all the polls released in 2016, his average polling is 5.5% and he sits in 5th place, still even behind the plummeting Ben Carson.  One could argue that a rise of 15 points in a short period of time is not at all uncommon in Republican primaries. At least four candidates had those kinds of somewhat meteoric rises last time around. A similar ascension in Jeb’s numbers would put him in a tight battle with Cruz for second place and maybe a chance of holding on. But that’s not the way to think of it this year.

Here in 2016, with at least three other so-called establishment candidates on the stump, it’s not that it’s only 15 points or so to get in the game, it’s that Jeb would have to essentially quadruple his support to get to a neck-and-neck battle for that second position. And just where is that support going to come from? Right now, nowhere.

No, to get into the long game, a viable establishment lane needs to open and Jeb has to be the only car in the lane. And having only one establishment candidate standing fairly early on is essential to that lane opening at all. There is simply not enough support to go around to sustain two or more candidates in that slice of the spectrum.

The bigger  problem is there is really only one strategy to get there: hang around long enough to sop up the support from the other candidates when they drop out. So Jeb, Rubio, Kasich and Christie, each and all of them, will be doing everything to hang on as long as they can to be The One. Unfortunately for them, hanging on may be pointless if it goes on too long. They risk getting shut out of any delegates in those early March primaries by failing to get enough votes to meet the high threshold needed in several states to be awarded delegates at all.  While they hang on and act as a damper on each other’s primary showings, the delegates will get split up by the only two who right now can meet the thresholds, Trump and Cruz, who will start to pull away from the pack–in other words, it will become a two person race with no establishment lane.

Then there’s the money factor. Without a win in the early going, or at least a couple of solid and impressive beat-the-expectations showings, the money men will be reluctant to throw more good money after bad for any particular candidate. So money–well, lack of money–will act as a filter on field as it always does. I expect Christie will be the first to go. He won’t make it to South Carolina, the third primary (and a winner-take-all), where there’s no sense whatsoever for him to try to compete. Moreover his semi-surge in New Hampshire seems to have already run its course.

Kasich, Rubio and Jeb are all going to do their damnedest to stay around until March 15 when the winner-take-all Florida and Ohio contests are held. And it won’t be easy on the money end of things. There are over 20 primaries between the the last of the first four and those on March 15th, when there will be six more. That will take a substantial pile of cash to be competitive.

Kasich, if he’s still in, should run well in Ohio, his home state where’s he’s popular and take those 66 delegates. A recent ARG poll has him at 20% in New Hampshire and provided that’s not an outlier and he builds on it, it could result in a win or a strong second there which might be enough to get him through to the 15th. But if he doesn’t pick up any delegates along the way before then, he’ll be limping in at best.

On the other hand, neither Jeb nor Rubio can win in Florida while the other one is still in the race. And it will still be next to impossible if Cruz is still running moderately well there as he is now. The most recent poll, from Florida Atlantic University, has Trump at 48%(!), Cruz at 16%, Rubio at 11% and Jeb at 10%. Even if you assume the 48% is an outlier, the other recent poll there has Trump at 31%, so his support is legit in the Sunshine State. And even at 31%, that’s a lot of ground to cover for either of the two Florida boys.

So the bottom line is Jeb is in fact dead unless the following happen:

1. Christie drops out well before Super Tuesday. (High probability)
2. Kasich’s surge stops in New Hampshire and reverses itself. (Moderately low probability)
3. Rubio and Cruz continue their recent decline in New Hampshire–enough that Jeb finishes no lower than second or a very strong third there. They are both on a downward trend there over the last month. (Moderate probability)
4. Rubio and Kasich drop out after Super Tuesday. (Moderate probability)
5. Jeb stays competitive after New Hampshire and picks up some wins and delegates before March 15. (Right now, rather low probability on getting any wins)
6. Jeb wins Florida. (Right now a moderately low probability.) This essentially means that the Florida Atlantic University poll has to be an outlier (i.e., a one-time statistical fluke from a bad sample and Trump’s support must be, in reality, considerably lower), because if he truly is at 48% in Florida, I don’t see anyone catching him.
7. Jeb has the money he says he does to get through. (moderately high probability)

So in other words, in terms of Jeb making it into a three-way race, what the Election Junkie is telling you is: there’s a chance! But that’s a hell of a lot of what-ifs.