But the GOP’s divisions and the pessimism of many Republicans about Donald Trump’s prospects in November have created a similar dynamic in Cleveland. And along with Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, Cotton has emerged as the most popular attraction in town. In addition to the trio of early states, he’s received invitations to address the California, Ohio, Florida, and Connecticut delegations (among others). He told me he’d be speaking “to as many Republicans as I can.”

Cotton looks even younger than his not-yet-40 years, and he sometimes resembles a polite, eager student as he waits in restaurants and hotel banquets for handlers to introduce him to party activists from one state or another. But he has a résumé built for national leadership in the pre-Trump GOP: Raised on a family farm in Arkansas, he earned both bachelor’s and law degrees from Harvard before joining the Army after 9/11. He served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, earning a Bronze Star, and defeated Democratic Senator Mark Pryor in 2014 after serving just a single term in the House. Within months of his arrival in the Senate, Cotton had made a national name for himself by aggressively opposing the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal.

Despite his rapid rise, Cotton is already too practiced a politician to cop to ambitions for 2020, or to the possibility—likelihood?—that the Republican presidential nomination will be up for grabs in four years. “I’m not planning on that at all,” he said. “But it is important that we continue to build the party, and the states you just mentioned and I just mentioned are all critical states for the election.”

Charlie Bass, a former New Hampshire congressman, had the luxury of being more candid, having been retired by the voters of his district in 2012. “I think Senator Ernst and Senator Cotton are certainly interested in running in four years,” Bass told me a few minutes after Ernst finished speaking to New Hampshire delegates on Tuesday morning. “If Senator [Lindsey] Graham from South Carolina were here, I’m sure he would be stopping by.”

In addition to Ernst and Cotton, the New Hampshire delegation is hearing from two 2016 also-rans who could try again in four years, Governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio. Might Rick Santorum be eyeing a third try at the presidency? He’s speaking on Thursday morning to the delegates from Iowa, site of his 2012 caucus victory. Iowa is also hosting a boat cruise Wednesday with Newt Gingrich, who was a running mate runner-up this year but who will be 77 come 2020.

“We had a lot of folks reach out to us,” said Jennifer Horn, chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, who helped choose the politicians that would be addressing the delegation. “Ultimately, we are very lucky that we had an abundance of people interested in speaking to our group.”