The latest polls say he's within three points of Cruz in Iowa. Cruz is going to get the traditional Iowa evangelical vote to turn out for him but Trump's strategy is to bring out people who have never voted before. If they're willing to turn out for a couple of hours on a freezing cold night in January -- and they've stood in line for hours to get into one of his rallies -- then he could blow the field away. Even a strong second is good as he's miles ahead in new Hampshire and the next state is South Carolina which was so pissed off at the establishment in 2012 that they voted for Newt Gingrich.

A strong second for Trump is probably more than enough to keep the ball rolling. If he does do that or better and then wins New Hampshire (which is a must-win for establishment guys like Bush and Rubio) then you'll see full on panic in the GOP establishment.

Trump has a much bigger chance of beating Hillary in the general than is generally believed too. There are issues that Trump has campaigned on -- trade, the money being made by Wall Street and taxing them more, strengthening social security and medicare, immigrants taking American jobs, America's crumbling infrastructure and so on that Hillary has a lot of weaknesses on for various reasons. Trump can hammer all these issues and market himself as a problem solver not a Washington native and he'll attract a lot of blue collar/union votes from the Democrats. He's also got the Clinton baggage from the nineties to go at. Trump would I think be a far more electable candidate than Cruz would be in the general. Just not a candidate that the GOP establishment want.