The naysayers are wrong. Rand Paul has a clearer path to the Republican nomination than most of the other candidates.

Last week I looked at the structure of the 2016 primary campaign. This week I’ll drill down on how this structure will affect Rand Paul’s strategy and his path to the nomination. The top line take-away is that Senator Paul needs to win early and decisively. Thanks to a big field, unique positioning and changes in campaign financing rules, it is more possible than many pundits are willing to admit, but still fraught with danger.

2016 primary voting starts with the Iowa Caucuses on February 2. In 2008, Ron Paul received 10% of the vote. In 2012, Ron Paul received 22% of the vote. In just 4 years, the percentage of Iowa Republicans that identified with libertarian views had increased by 108%. Assuming that Paul can hold his father’s voters and that the field will still be divided by half a dozen or more other credible candidates, this alone could be enough to win. After all, in 2012 there were only three credible alternatives on the ballot and one of them was Newt Gingrich. Santorum’s winning percentage was only 2.3 points better than Ron Paul. Throw one more credible candidate in the mix and Ron Paul (whose voters are uniquely loyal) wins Iowa and carries the momentum into New Hampshire. Most people don’t realize just how close Ron Paul actually came.

An important difference this cycle is changes to campaign finance rules that allow any candidate with a sugar daddy supporting their PAC to stay in far longer in the hope that they can grind on, pick up delegates and catch the frontrunner. That means more candidates dividing the national security and evangelical votes, clearing the way for Paul to consolidate the libertarian, Constitutional and civil liberty blocs. Under this analysis, Ted Cruz becomes Paul’s biggest direct challenge along with the possibility of a break-out candidate consolidating security and religious voters a la Marco Rubio.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Iowa is a closed caucus state so only registered Republicans can show up and vote. Although the state does allow same day party changes, this is still a structural impediment to activating a large number of the non-traditional voters that Team Paul has targeted. The current media strategy is clearly designed to enhance his chances in primaries such as New Hampshire as well as the general election by showing strong independent support and good head-to-head numbers against Hillary Clinton.

Bottom line: Paul could maybe survive a second place finish in Iowa, but only maybe and no worse. If he is to maximize his potential to win the nomination, it must start in Iowa. There is one week between Iowa and New Hampshire. Media coverage will go overwhelmingly to the winner and define the narrative and momentum going in.

New Hampshire has long broken the hearts of libertarians. For all of the bluster of “Live Free or Die”, the statists McCain and Romney took over 68% of the vote in 2008, the neo-con militarist Kelly Ayotte is their senator and the Free State Project has been reduced to feeding parking meters. In the 2012 primary, Mitt Romney won New Hampshire by 16.5 points. More like “Live Free…you know, or not”.

But hope does spring eternal or there wouldn’t be any libertarians left. In 2008 Ron Paul won 8%. In 2012 he juiced his total to 23%, an increase in votes of an eye-popping 297%. For the same reasons as in Iowa, Rand Paul could easily win New Hampshire with a similar vote total.

He also has a second big advantage; New Hampshire has a semi-closed primary. That means that unaffiliated voters can choose either a GOP or Democrat ballot. This allows that much hoped for bloc of leave me alone liberal and social libertarian independents to be organized and turned out for Paul in a way that no other Republican candidate could match.

Any way you slice it, New Hampshire is a must win for Paul. Not only will this result linger for 11 days before South Carolina goes to the polls, it is perceived to be among the most libertarian states. The line will go “If Paul can’t win in New Hampshire, where can he win?”

If he pulls off Iowa and New Hampshire wins (he’s currently polling third in both), he has a high probability of securing the nomination. But only with these wins along with proper management of expectations for South Carolina can Paul hope to remain in the hunt.

Rand Paul will not win South Carolina. Sure, I’ll take bets on that prediction. Also the sun will rise, taxes will be too high and eventually we will all die. Rand Paul will not win South Carolina.

In 2008 Ron Paul, who invested heavily in South Carolina, managed just 4%. In 2012 Ron Paul increased his vote total impressively to 13%, finishing fourth but still with a 40+ vote percentage drop off from his Iowa and New Hampshire totals that same year. The reason is simple. Atlantic South Carolina is dominated by military and retired military while the western hills are dominated by evangelicals. Rand Paul will never be the first choice of either of these groups, especially after six months of getting hammered as a peacenik social liberal who will legalize drugs and spoon the Ayatollah.

Therefore South Carolina becomes an exercise in managing expectations. The bar that Team Paul should set is to exceed low expectations so that finishing third or fourth is the objective, not a shocking setback for his presidential ambitions in the media narrative.

If they can deliver on lowering and meeting expectations, South Carolina will disappear as a story quickly because just three days later Nevada holds its caucuses.

Nevada almost switched to a primary this year, but the legislative session ran down without a final vote. This is thought to be good for Rand Paul. It has been assumed that the enthusiasm gap for Paul fans translates to more support in caucus states where one must commit to hours of tedious speeches and procedures to participate as opposed to primaries where you can just send your migrant gardener in to vote on your behalf.

In 2008 Ron Paul pulled 14%, finishing second to Mitt Romney who overwhelmed the caucuses with thousands of his religiously affiliated supporters. In 2012, Paul increased his total to 19%, but still got buried by Mormons. In both cases Romney pulled over 50%. With Mitt focused on his boxing career, there is no obvious choice for those voters, many of whom will stay home. The rest are likely to be divided among the several candidates that fit their niches. If Rand-mentum from Iowa and New Hampshire wins the day in Nevada and he completes a 3 of 4 run in the early primary states, the tail winds become so heavy that it is very likely they will carry him through March 1 and on to the nomination.

If he fails to win at least New Hampshire and Nevada, then things get really dicey.

March 1 is the first day that any state can hold its contest without being sanctioned by the RNC. As a result, 10 states will hold their nominating contests on that day…so far. Colorado and Minnesota will also hold non-binding caucuses. While those caucus states are good for Paul, they will receive very little coverage.

For what it’s worth, Florida won’t vote until March 15 making all of the media time spent discussing Florida pretty irrelevant. Florida’s importance is greatly diminished from previous primary cycles unless the 20 or states that vote before result in a protracted delegate fight.

The states that do hold binding contests on March 1 will be Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia. You would expect Paul to do well in Massachusetts and Vermont, but the rest of this schedule is a nightmare for many of the same reasons as South Carolina.

Paul polls in the low single digits in most of the South. Without significant momentum, early wins could be buried by a string of bad results unless Paul can find a message that breaks through. Losing powerhouses like Texas and Virginia by a wide margin undermines the electability argument that will be central to Paul’s stake. The GOP has never had a nominee that was shut out in the Deep South. If the GOP loses just one of those states in the general without significant re-alignment elsewhere, the electoral math suggests that President Democrat becomes a near certainty.

Such are the opportunities and perils of Paul…as well as the GOP.