And then there were five. That’s how many Republicans qualified to participate in Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate in Miami-Dade County. Since the second debate in September at the Ronald Reagan Library, former vice-president Mike Pence has dropped out. Asa Hutchinson did not qualify for that debate and he hasn’t qualified for this one either. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has been disqualified, too, for failure to meet minimum polling requirements. And despite meeting all the thresholds for participation, Donald Trump is not eligible because he has so far refused to pledge to support the eventual nominee, assuming it is not him. He has no interest in debating in any case considering his commanding lead in all polls.

So, we’re left with the two South Carolinians, Sen. Tim Scott and former governor and ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, and businessman Vivek “the fake” Ramaswamy. Only Scott and DeSantis currently hold elected office.

Christie is purely a spoiler who is running against Trump rather than for the nomination. Ramaswamy’s star seems to have faded. And Tim Scott barely qualified for the debate and appears to be running on fumes. So this really appears like a race between Haley and DeSantis. On Monday, DeSantis received the important endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds who said, “I believe [Trump] can’t win, and I believe that Ron can.”

It’s important that someone makes the case that Trump can’t win because the polling indicates he would beat Joe Biden if the election were held today, so there’s little objective evidence to support that Trump is a fatally flawed candidate. As his losses in court begin to pile up, that may change, and it certainly has to change if DeSantis or anyone else is to have any chance of winning the nomination.

The debate will have to compete with news coverage of Ivanka Trump’s testimony in the Trump Corporation’s Manhattan fraud trial. I doubt it will have a major impact on the race unless there is a major gaffe by either Haley or DeSantis. But it will be interesting to see what strategies they use, especially on the topic of Trump and his legal problems. So far, it seems to anger Republican voters when Trump is criticized, but a case has to be made that despite the current polls he isn’t a viable candidate. Will either Haley or DeSantis join Christie in making that argument?

It must be hard to choose a strategy, especially because there are two distinct ways of winning the nomination. The first is the traditional path of winning the most delegates. That’s a tall order considering Trump’s polling advantage. The second is to win in a brokered convention, and that could happen if Trump is convicted on federal or Fulton County, Georgia charges before the Republican National Convention crowns a winner. In the latter case, it’s likely that Trump-pledged delegates will decide the winner, so being their second choice is important.

It’s a tricky business. DeSantis is a more natural second choice for the MAGA crowd than Haley, so he probably wants to avoid antagonizing them and blowing his advantage. Yet, if he wants to compete in Iowa he needs to start making the electability argument now, and quite forcefully.

These Republican debates are painful to watch, but at least there are some questions the curious will have answered.