It may be that Donald Trump, in case you haven’t noticed, is one of a kind. Disentangling his appeal to Republican voters is a complicated and perhaps impossible task. Is it his deviations from mainstream conservatism that they like, or his accommodations to it? Is it the “outsider” that appeals to them, or the fact that he, like the party’s previous nominee, is a successful businessman? Did he simply benefit from fame and theatrical talent in a crowded field of rookies and veterans without stories to tell?

I doubt we will ever know. Still, the relative success of figures like Portman, Ryan, McCain, and Rubio suggests that mainstream conservatism of the three-legged-stool variety—pro-business, hawkish on national security, conservative on social issues—has not been destroyed by the “nation-state populism” of Donald Trump and Breitbart.com. It exists in Congress, in state houses, in conservative institutions and in donor networks. And it is plotting its comeback.