A close loss is a proof of concept. A blowout is a dead end. Tuesday decides which one this was.

Since I wrote about James Fishback a few days ago, the reply I keep getting is some version of relax, he can’t win.

I know. I said so in the piece. He is on my primary ballot Tuesday. He’s polling somewhere between four and twelve for governor of Florida, Byron Donalds is at forty-eight with the president behind him, and the whole thing has been filed under handled.

Nobody is a serious candidate until the morning after.

The left’s version of this took about a decade to get from fringe posting to winning primaries, and at every step the answer was that it wasn’t a real threat yet. Not a serious candidate. Not a real constituency. A few cranks online. Then it was a congresswoman. Then a caucus. Then, two weeks ago, a Senate nominee in Michigan.

Nobody in that chain thought they were watching the first step. Every one of them thought they were watching the last one.

The Margin Is the Message

So let’s take that as given for a minute. Say he can’t win.

I want the number to be humiliating.

Come in respectable and every donor, every consultant, and every twenty-six-year-old with a podcast learns the same lesson: there is a real market for this in Florida, it is cheap, and the only thing missing was somebody willing to pay for it. The next one runs the identical play with a budget.

Come in humiliated and they learn it’s a money pit.

Tuesday is either a footnote........

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