Ben Shapiro gave his brief assessment of how the candidates performed in last night’s Republican primary debate.

He explains what he believes it will take for a candidate to overtake Trump and how difficult that might be given the crowded field:

His last tweet was too long to embed, so here’s what he said:

Right now, there are four lanes in the GOP. Here are some rough estimates.

Trumpers (Ride or die: 35%)
Traditional GOP (Reaganite conservatives who like Trump, but aren’t wedded to him: 25%)
Never Trumpers (20%)
Trump Adjacent (Like him, but could vote for someone else: 20%)

For anyone to beat Trump, they have to lock up the Never Trumpers, 80% of the traditional GOP, and half the Trump adjacent.

DeSantis is still the only candidate with some level of support in all three lanes, but each lane has a current obstacle for him to overcome: Haley/Scott/Pence in the traditional GOP lane; Christie in the Never Trumper lane; and Vivek in the Trump Adjacent lane.

This is the systemic challenge for anyone seeking to overcome the former president. It’s a formidable challenge, exacerbated by the fragmentation of the field and the difficulty of building a bridge between, say, Trump Adjacent and Never Trump.

He’s right about DeSantis. But as he suggests it is an uphill climb with so many candidates vying for the nomination. We’ll see if DeSantis can figure it out and begin to increase his support. I was hoping last night would be the beginning of that movement, but I’m not sure that happened.