Trump’s support has hit its ceiling, and my liberal friends will let out a sigh of relief, but they deserve a smack upside the head for all their face-clutching and hand-wringing. While Donald Trump is still the frontrunner, technically, it has become clear that most Republicans don’t want him, and that vast majority has its support split across a number of candidates.

But the number of candidates on stage is going to be winnowing down. Once those candidates start endorsing others, that number will drop even further and create a feedback loop until we’re down to around five or six serious candidates come New Hampshire/Iowa, down to four serious candidates at most come Super Tuesday.

Carly Fiorina’s rise (+12, from 3% to 15% before/after the CNN Debate), combined with Trump’s first major drop (-8) and Ben Carson’s fade (-5), as well as Marco Rubio’s strong showing (+8, now at 11%) shows that the race is far from decided, and that frontrunners like Trump and Carson are failing to cross over from their respective populist/Christian Tea Party corners. Carson’s fade will continue — after criticism that he was far too soft-spoken, now he’s speaking up and it’s going in bad directions for the general election. Establishment voters will see him as not ready for prime time.

Rubio, for his part, has had weakening ties with the Tea Party in recent years, while also expanding out his base of support across his battleground state of Florida. Almost like he’s serious about running for President. (He’s my frontrunner for the VP ticket sweepstakes, though the GOP has fucked that up before.)

Meanwhile, Scott Walker’s support has evaporated (-5, and now statistically at 0%) after easily the worst debate performance put in by any candidate this cycle. He was already fighting off the feeling that he had no direction, but when immediately after the debate you’re complaining that the media’s crowning the clear winner, you’re drowning.

(Clearly, Walker hasn’t heard of this newfangled thing called social media, where people talk and discuss and were saying the same exact things “the media” said before they even said it. Carly won and you lost bad, Governor.)

Likely Walker leaves by Halloween. After this poll, it may even be less than that, depending on how quickly his campaign team can jump ship and find a new home. Earlier last week, right after the debate, Walker’s team had quickly set up a conference call with donors to keep them on board. Clearly, those donors are rioting. Bye, Scott.

Chris Christie, after a long dormancy, has shown a little bit of life (+1, now at 3%), but the reality is that he will have to triple his support now by November to show he can hang. Moderate Republican voters don’t have anyone else they can turn to (no, we’re not counting Graham or Pataki), but they clearly seem to be either staying home or lending support to an establishment candidate like Jeb Bush or giving Fiorina or Rubio a try.

Now, I think FiveThirtyEight’s just doing the best they can re: Trump, basically lumping him in with the similarly populist Tea Party wing, but that’s not exactly where he stands, and it doesn’t matter. what does is how far away he is from the pack. When the number of candidates winnow, jumping to The Donald will not happen.

What does matter is that “establishment ring.” Go figure, it crosses over most of the candidates, because that’s where the voters and the money are. Combine up the polls of those who’re very early sticking with establishment candidates, and you get 40% of these CNN numbers. Take Rand Paul and Huckabee/Santorum’s numbers into account — the libertarian and Christian conservative wings will always sigh and rally behind establishment candidates, once they get their points on the party platform — and that number jumps to 53%, a majority. This doesn’t count Carson’s numbers, but expect that majority to increase as his support bleeds.

Now, that majority doesn’t agree on much in this race, but when you look at how the establishment/willing-to-go-establishment numbers coalesce, and combine it with 59% unfavorable toward Trump, it becomes clear that when the party starts narrowing down their establishment options, followed Huckabee, Santorum and Paul hanging it up, the party will right around Super Tuesday have a candidate they’ll accept. And it won’t be Donald Trump.

Who it will be remains to be seen.

A name I’ve barely mentioned is Jeb Bush. That’s because he’s stuck in neutral at the moment (+0, held at 9%). The reality is that he’s going to have a George W. Bush problem. While Bush 43's poll numbers have softened after he left office — they always do — they pale in comparison to Bill Clinton, who the right keeps trying to use to scare voters into going against a Democratic nominee. (Why anyone would look at those numbers and think, “that’s fodder to get people to vote against who he supports!” is beyond me.) It should also be noted that establishment Republican pundits are not on board with Jeb’s narrative. Neoconservatives aren’t having the best primary this cycle.

The reality is that while yes, Hillary Clinton’s numbers are down — and they will be, as long as Joe Biden keeps his half-campaign going — Republicans are certain she’s the nominee, so they know the choice of another Bush/Clinton matchup is entirely up to them. It’s rather clear that while Jeb is sitting on the biggest pile of donor money, Republican voters are not thrilled with that prospect.

With Rick Perry starting the falling of dominoes, and Walker not far behind, we will start seeing a clearer picture of what this race is actually going to look like come New Hampshire and Iowa, which, mind you, is in Februrary 2016. It’s very early in the race and voters are trying out a number of candidates before they settle on who they think can accomplish what they’d like to see happen with the country, and also who they think can win.

Frontrunners come and go — but this isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.