What doomed Chris Christie?

[Potus]

Chris Christie was hurt by a lot, but Trump is what really killed it for him and a few other candidates.

Huckabee got into this thing assuming that his populism on Social Security and trade would bolster his faith-based outreach to the white working class. This was going to be the political antithesis of the Romney path to the nomination. He didn't count on Trump surging into first with an anti-reform stance on Social Security and trade as a focal point of his candidacy.

Christie planned on combining his more obvious blue state Governor moderate appeal with his straight talker approach to win over people dissatisfied with the political system. If you remember the Christie for President sweepstakes in 2012, it was built almost entirely on the "Sit down and shut up," teacher union-fighting YouTube videos. This was, once again, a narrative built to reach out to white working class voters. He would run a mutation of the Romney campaign. That's why his poll numbers always ran so strong in Pennsylvania and places like that. Trump has monopolized his market. Christie's campaign slogan is literally "Telling it like it is," but Trump won almost two thirds of the vote among people who said that was important to them.

Anyone who ever thought Fiorina had a path to the nomination probably would have drawn that conclusion from Romney's success in talking about his business experience. The other part may be that some people want to nominate a woman. But Trump destroyed any hope of using her business credentials to pick up small business voters that supported Romney.

Trump taking the lead essentially ended these three campaigns. Santorum was also supposed to be built on white working class voters. All campaigns relying on white working class voters have been decimated by Trump's ascendancy.