Still, it’s strik­ing that Christie has a path­way to vic­tory when his cam­paign looked to be on life sup­port not long ago. His polit­ic­al for­tunes are akin to his ho­met­own New York Gi­ants—a real shot at mak­ing the (polit­ic­al) play­offs, but need­ing oth­er cam­paigns to col­lapse. To pre­vail in New Hamp­shire, he’ll need to win over sup­port from the oth­er ex­ec­ut­ives—Bush, Kasich, and Carly Fior­ina—while po­ten­tially peel­ing off some of Trump’s wide­spread sup­port. For everything to break his way is plaus­ible, but a risky bet.

Usu­ally, two can­did­ates emerge from the polit­ic­al rubble of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hamp­shire primar­ies. This year, we could see four: Trump as the can­did­ate of GOP pop­u­lists, Cruz or Car­son as the evan­gel­ic­als’ pick, Ru­bio as the early es­tab­lish­ment fa­vor­ite, and Christie as the es­tab­lish­ment al­tern­at­ive eager to con­trast his ex­ec­ut­ive ex­per­i­ence against first-term sen­at­ors, a neurosur­geon, and a real­ity-show star.

“You’re go­ing to find four or five tick­ets com­ing out of New Hamp­shire—and I’m con­fid­ent Christie will be one of them,” said Christie back­er Joel Maiola, who served as a chief of staff to former Sen. Judd Gregg. “Polit­ics is all about tim­ing. And his tim­ing could not be bet­ter.”