About halfway through the five stages of Republican despair over the state of the presidential primary—after Donald Trump shot to the top of the polls, but before most people came to terms with the durability of his support—the commentariat (both conservative and liberal) took solace in the assumption that Trump couldn’t withstand even a single loss.

Trump’s brand, according to this conventional wisdom, was so synonymous with winning—always winning—that losing would reveal his political persona to be a facade, and his support would melt away.

This analysis reflected at least two significant and related misunderstandings. First, Trump’s setbacks in the business world were well known, decidedly not fatal, and should’ve called into doubt the view that losing is Kryptonite to Trump. But it was also based on an outright misreading of Trump’s political persona, which combined issue positions and affects that appeal to large masses of Republican voters, with a promise that overall, and in the long run, Trump wins.

In that light, it’s no surprise that after slightly underperforming in the Iowa caucuses by coming in second to Ted Cruz, Trump turned around and lapped the field in New Hampshire.

Trump’s victory, and the magnitude of his victory, is a political cataclysm for the Republican Party. When it became clear that Trump would win, the GOP establishment’s parting hope was that Trump’s margin would thin, and he’d once again face a storyline about his inability to meet expectations; that he’d lose by winning. Instead he more than doubled the support of the second-place finisher, John Kasich. This gives Trump an early delegate lead going into nominating contests in South Carolina and Nevada, where he also enjoys commanding advantages in public polls.