Let's have a look at the RCP average of GOP primary polls as they stand:

• Trump, 62.5% 
• Haley and DeSantis, tied at 11.2%
• Ramaswamy, 4.2%
• Christie, 3.4%
• Hutchinson, 0.8%.

As of this writing, the RCP average for the general has Trump leading incumbent Joe Biden 46.6% to 44.3%.

At this point, the GOP nomination is a three-man person race, with one way out in front.

Barring some totally unprecedented development, Trump is going to win the Iowa caucuses on January 15 (his lead in the RCP averages there is currently 32.7 percent). The big question is whether DeSantis can keep his campaign temporarily alive by finishing second after focusing all his resources on Iowa or if he will instead give way to Haley, who has a remote but distinct path to viability in New Hampshire and then in her home state of South Carolina. That makes the head-to-head debate between these two survivors on January 10 at Drake University in Des Moines a genuinely interesting and significant encounter. It will offer DeSantis one final chance to deploy his more-conservative-than-anyone message in hopes of peeling off Trump loyalists while depicting Haley as too RINO-ish for a GOP defined by the MAGA movement, even as Haley seeks to consolidate anti-Trump voters and advertise her allegedly superior electability to Republicans starved for power. Trump, of course, will skip the debate and, in fact, hold a town-hall event in Des Moines sponsored by Fox News on the same evening.

Let's face it: Asa Hutchinson is not even in the field anymore; it's amazing he has hung on this long. People are responding to his name in the polls by asking, "Hutchinson who?" Chris Christie is only still in because the legacy media loves to play clips of him bashing Trump, and Christie loves to have the legacy media playing clips of him bashing Trump; it's about the only exposure he gets anymore. And while Vivek Ramaswamy has had some great moments lately, he has to be still in this hoping for the VP ticket or a cabinet post.

Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is sweating some bullets. The disastrous economy is costing them some support among key Democrat constituencies.

Biden now claims the support of just 63% of Black voters, a precipitous decline from the 87% he carried in 2020, according to the Roper Center. He trails among Hispanic voters by 5 percentage points, 39%-34%; in 2020 he had swamped Trump among that demographic group 2 to 1, 65%-32%. 

And among voters under 35, a generation largely at odds with the GOP on issues such as abortion access and climate change, Trump now leads 37%-33%. Younger voters overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020. 

The possible good news for the president is that much of the support he needs to rebuild has drifted to third-party candidates, not into the camp of his likely opponent. Twenty percent of Hispanic and Black voters, and 21% of young voters, now say they'll back someone other than the two main contenders.

That last bit of "good news" doesn't help Team Biden any, though; sucking voters away from the Democrats into a third party will result in much the same effect as those people voting for a Republican.

The president is in trouble. His polling sinks to new lows every day, his mental and physical decline is worse every day, and his understudy is an embarrassment. When the actual general election gets underway, Kamala Harris will be about as welcome at campaign events as ants at a picnic.

See Related: New: Worrisome Poll Numbers for Kamala Harris and What They May Mean for Her Beyond 2024

A few predictions:

• Trump will carry Iowa, and probably New Hampshire, but Haley, DeSantis, and likely Christie will stay in until Super Tuesday.
• If Trump's polling numbers translate into primary votes, by Super Tuesday, the nomination will be sewed up, and Trump's candidacy for a second Grover-Cleveland-style second term is assured.
• If this happens, Christie and Ramaswamy will drop out; Haley and DeSantis may well stay in until the convention to pull some concessions for releasing their delegates.
• Trump, if he does gain the nomination, will have to run a campaign that has already factored in the cheat factor from Democrats.

See Related: Yikes: Ex-CIA Analyst Warns About Intel Agencies Being Involved in 2024 Election

There's always the possibility of something unexpected happening; Trump is an old man, and he may have a sudden health issue that would prevent him from running. DeSantis (maybe) or Haley (unlikely) may pull out some unexpected and dramatic primary wins. 

I'll essay one more guess: A lot of pixels are being expended taking shots at who Trump may pick as a VP candidate. The only thing here about which I am 100 percent sure is that the VP candidate won't be Mike Pence. But while the esteemed Kurt Schlichter is predicting that the former president and present presidential candidate will pick Nikki Haley for the #2 chair, I'm inclined to disagree, especially given the one guy who appears to have been running for that slot all along:

Vivek Ramaswamy.

Hear me out on this. I'm not saying Ramaswamy would be the best candidate; he wouldn't be my first choice. But he has been very deferential to The Donald throughout this whole process, which I think we all know carries a lot of water with Trump. Ramaswamy's polling numbers have to be telling him that he's the longest of long shots for the nomination; and spending four years in the VP seat in a second, lame-duck Trump term positions him very well to run for the top spot in 2028.

At this point, it's really looking like it's going to be Trump v. Biden again unless the Dems replace old Joe at the convention. While I'm disinclined to offer the Democrats advice when they are in the process of making a mistake, I would have to say putting up Biden for a second campaign would be the most catastrophic miscalculation since General John Sedgwick, at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House, assured a nearby soldier, "Don't worry, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."

Hang on, folks. It's going to be quite a ride.