One of the more interesting debates so far this election cycle has been over whether the party decides. Do party elites — politicians, activists, media, etc. — have enough power to influence the nominating contest? Can they pick a winner? Can they stop someone from winning? If so, then Donald Trump, who doesn’t have a single endorsement from a sitting governor or member of Congress, should have little shot at the Republican nomination.

For much of this campaign, however, Republican Party elites weren’t deciding. Most Republican governors and members of Congress haven’t endorsed anyone, and the pace of endorsements has been slower than in past campaigns. But that’s starting to change: More GOP elites are taking the plunge.

In fact, by a hair — and for the moment — Marco Rubio has overtaken the pace set by at least one past Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Rubio has picked up the endorsements of Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina this week. Indeed, Rubio has greatly increased his endorsement pace since the Iowa caucuses, picking up 42 weighted endorsement points in the past two-and-a-half weeks, according to the FiveThirtyEight endorsement tracker. That’s nearly half of the 85 points he has overall. All the other candidates who remain in the race have received only 4 endorsement points combined since the Iowa caucuses. The second-place candidate, Jeb Bush, has 51 points, but most of those came early in the campaign, when Bush looked far more formidable; he’s earned just 17 points since September.