Polls in individual states tell a similar story. In a recent piece on FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver noted that “about half” of Republican primary voters in New Hampshire said that “they’d be unhappy with [Trump] as their nominee.” That’s true: 46 percent of New Hampshire Republican voters told exit pollsters they would be “dissatisfied” if Trump won the nomination. What Silver didn’t mention is that the percentage that said they’d be dissatisfied if Rubio or Cruz won was even higher.

The point is that Trump’s “ceiling” is neither particularly low nor fixed. A mid-February Economist/YouGov poll found that 62 percent of likely GOP voters view Trump favorably, which is virtually identical to the percentage who approve of Rubio and Cruz.

In Ohio, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll, Trump’s favorability is 57 percent. In New Jersey, it’s 58 percent. And in deep-blue Massachusetts, it’s 64 percent. Trump is leading in all these states, but the percentage of Republicans who view him favorably far exceeds the percentage that currently support him, which suggests that he has room to grow.

In fact, in states like New Jersey and Massachusetts, which boast more moderate GOP electorates, the top-tier candidate with the lowest ceiling is not Trump. It’s the ultra-conservative Cruz. In New Jersey, Trump’s favorability-to-unfavorability margin is plus 28 points. Cruz’s is minus seven. In Massachusetts, Trump’s margin is plus 32 points. Cruz’s is an astounding minus 27. That high an unfavorability rating makes it hard to imagine Cruz winning 50 percent in the Bay State in even a two-person contest. Trump, by contrast, is polling at 50 percent in Massachusetts now—and that’s with four other candidates in the race!

Yet another way to measure Trump’s potential support is through hypothetical matchups in a narrowed field. But this doesn’t confirm the “hard-ceiling” thesis, either. I found three national polls that asked Republicans how they would vote if only Trump, Rubio, and Cruz were in the race. One had Trump in front by 11 points, a second had him ahead by 10 points, and a third had Rubio leading by one point. In two-way hypotheticals, Trump’s numbers are worse. An early February poll by Public Policy Polling showed Trump losing to Rubio in a one-on-one matchup by 12 points and losing to Cruz by 6 points. In a mid-February NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Rubio and Cruz had an even larger edge. But that poll is something of an outlier: It’s the only national survey since last October not to show Trump leading overall. In a January NBC/Wall Street Journal poll with horse-race numbers that more closely track other polls, by contrast, Trump still lost a hypothetical matchup to Cruz, but he beat Rubio. In hypothetical one-on-one matchups in South Carolina, Trump defeated Cruz and Rubio (narrowly), as well.