The Charleston debate may have been more consequential than it looked at first glance. For starters, neither Jeb Bush nor John Kasich nor Ben Carson registered. (Except for Bush’s bizarre decision to make his most impassioned argument of the campaign in service of the rights of Muslim citizens from foreign countries. This was political malpractice.) The night further underscored the extent to which the race has really drilled down to four plausible candidates, who are competing in two very different races.

In the Christie vs. Rubio war, you saw a gotcha fight over Christie’s past transgressions on conservative policy orthodoxy. Some of the charges Rubio made against Christie were stretches (like Christie’s support of Common Core, which he clearly and decisively changed policy on). Others were pretty clean hits—like his pointing to Christie’s support of the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, Planned Parenthood, and desire to restrict gun rights. This is the normal order of battle in a Republican primary and the fight might determine which of these candidates advances out of New Hampshire.