Since today is kind of a waiting game in Washington, as pundits ponder whether Representative Jim Jordan can strongarm enough of his fellow House Republicans into voting for him for speaker or not (the vote will be held tomorrow), I thought it was a good day to check in with the state of the Republican presidential nomination race.

Or, to be strictly accurate, the race for second place on the Republican side. Donald Trump continues to absolutely dominate the field, as even his daily rolling average in national polling is approaching 60 percent. His closest competitor trails him by a whopping 45 points. That is not a race, that is a coronation. But operating on the principle of "Who knows what could happen?" it is still worth taking a look at how the others are doing, because there have been a few developments in the race for second.

The biggest development over the past month or so has been the rise of Nikki Haley. She's turned in two good debate performances so far, and could get to the point where people start talking about her candidacy the way they used to talk about that of Ron DeSantis -- as the best chance around of beating Trump.

Haley's rise doesn't show up as dramatically in the national polling, but even there she has successfully wrested third place from Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy was the clear beneficiary of the first debate, when a nationwide audience saw him for the first time. But his brash tech-bro style isn't exactly a warm and fuzzy one, so while he did get an initial bump in the polls, it seems to have fallen back since his second debate performance (where, inexplicably, he attempted a sort of "Let's all sing 'Kumbaya,' whaddya say?" softer edge). Haley is showing more resilience though, as she passed Ramaswamy in the national polling a few weeks back.

But as all candidates (who are not polling in first place) will tell you, the national polls don't really matter, since that's not how the candidates are nominated. You have to look at the early-voting states, since that's where someone could break out of the pack. So let's take a deeper dive into those numbers.

In Iowa, Trump is not quite as dominant, but still dominant enough (his polling average is just over 50 percent). DeSantis is running second at 17.3 percent, after investing a whole bunch of time and energy (and money) in the state. Others have done the same thing, but without as much to show for it. Tim Scott had pinned a lot of his hopes on Iowa and his appeal to evangelical voters. This paid off for him initially (he was polling above 10 percent in third place, back in August), but his numbers have shrunk since then (he's now tied for fourth place with Ramaswamy, at 6 percent). Both Ramaswamy and Haley got post-debate bumps in Iowa, but Ramaswamy quickly hit a ceiling and has fallen back, while Haley continued upwards to where she is now, at 9.5 percent. None of the other candidates are polling above 4 percent.

While Haley improved significantly in Iowa, New Hampshire is where she is really taking off. She was polling pretty steadily around 4 percent before the debates, and then interest in her spiked dramatically in mid-September. Since then, she has moved from seventh place all the way up into second place -- the most dramatic move of any candidate yet, in fact. Haley's polling average is currently 14.2 percent, but the only poll taken in October so far put her at 19 percent, so her average could be about to climb even higher. Haley has overtaken Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie, and (most impressively) Ron DeSantis, all in the space of a month.

DeSantis seems to have at least arrested his slide in the polls, but he also seems to have bottomed out at under 13 percent (nationally), roughly 5 points ahead of Haley. Iowa is a little stronger for him, he's still in second place at 17.3 percent (besting Haley by 8 points), but New Hampshire is not looking good for Ron, since he has fallen into a race for third place with Chris Christie (who has pretty much put all his chips on the Granite State). Both Christie and DeSantis hover around 10 percent, while Haley surpassed both and appears to still be climbing.

At the other end of the scale, Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchinson are battling it out over who can post the worst numbers (Will Hurd, who was also in this struggle for last place, has since ended his campaign). Both should really follow Hurd's lead and get out of the race, at this point (Hutchison will likely do so first as Burgum can self-finance his campaign for as long as he likes, really).

Tim Scott has spent a lot of money chasing votes in the first two swing states, but it isn't really looking like it'll be money well-spent, at this point. He was holding on to third place in Iowa up until a month ago, but has since fallen to a tie with Ramaswamy for fourth place at 6.0 percent (with Haley now solidly in third). This was supposed to be his strongest state outside of his home state of South Carolina, remember. Evangelicals don't have as fertile ground in New Hampshire, however, where Scott is in sixth place, polling under 5 percent. Nationally, his numbers are even more dismal, only hitting 2.0 percent in seventh place, behind even Chris Christie. That is not a great result, after having spent so much donor money, to state the obvious.

The other development isn't as dramatic as Haley's rise, but it is pretty unsurprising. Mike Pence has seen his numbers go into a serious slide, and they weren't that high to begin with. Nationally, back in July, Pence was solidly in third place (behind Trump and DeSantis) nationally. He is now in fifth place nationally, and his numbers keep slowly going down (he's at 3.7 percent currently). In Iowa, he's at a similar 3.5 percent, but here this only puts him in sixth place, between Tim Scott (6.0 percent) and Chris Christie (2.0 percent). But in New Hampshire, Pence has fallen to eighth place -- behind even Doug Burgum. And Pence just had a pretty dismal quarter of fundraising, too.

Will any of all this even matter? Probably not, to give the honest answer. Donald Trump is still running away with the GOP nomination and he has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the Teflon Don -- because nothing sticks to him. No amount of indictments, court appearances, or spouting bizarre things about world affairs is going to lose him his MAGA base. Even if you combined all the other candidates' support, that conglomerate of votes still wouldn't beat Trump. If that dynamic doesn't change, then all of this attention on the second-place race will be moot.

The biggest open question is how many of these people will survive to see Iowa and New Hampshire vote, and then how many of them will drop out immediately afterwards (which could give other more-viable candidates a last chance to change the trajectory in South Carolina and Nevada, before Super Tuesday dawns). As I've already stated, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum should by all rights already have thrown in the towel -- but neither has, so far. Mike Pence should also realize that divine intervention is not going to manifest itself to his benefit, and gracefully drop out of the race.

Chris Christie, as mentioned, is betting it all on New Hampshire. If he fails to come in at least third there, he is a savvy enough politician to know that it's time to give up and give someone else a chance at beating Trump. In a similar fashion, Tim Scott will likely stay in until at least his home state of South Carolina votes, but he might not even do all that well there -- after all, Nikki Haley hails from the same state (South Carolina polling is sparse, but Haley has been solidly in second place there, beating even DeSantis, while Scott is only in fourth place). Scott pulling out before South Carolina votes would be interesting, because it might give Haley an extra boost right when she needs it the most, but it's a hard thing for a politician to give up before his home state votes, so we'll see.

Nationally -- at this point -- it seems like the race is down to four candidates: Trump, DeSantis, Haley, and Ramaswamy. However, when you add up their national numbers, the other three don't even top half of where Trump is polling. And the addition wouldn't actually be that clean, because for both DeSantis and Ramaswamy, if they actually did bow out of the race, it's quite probable that most of their voters would move to Trump, and not to the other challenger. Think about it -- both DeSantis and Ramaswamy are running candidacies that are far out on the MAGA rightwing fringe. They both have very kind words to say about Trump in general (in an effort to woo his voters away). DeSantis is running as a kind of: "Trump who can get things done," while Ramaswamy is running as: "Trump, but younger and more energetic." So if they end their campaigns, a lot of their support will wind up drifting back to Trump, one assumes.

There still is a race for second place in the Republican nomination fight. But the race is being fought so far behind where Trump finds himself that it's highly doubtful whether any of it is going to matter one way or another. The safest bet has always been -- and continues to be -- that Trump will take the nomination in a cakewalk.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant