Can Christie go the distance?

Neither could raise money nor build out their campaign teams fast enough; Santorum didn’t even make the primary ballot in Virginia. Christie is determined to avoid the same mess. The governor has qualified for primaries or caucuses in 32 states, two U.S. territories and Washington, D.C., completing processes that can be expensive and logistically complicated. And, Christie plans to begin campaigning in South Carolina this week, in preparation to pivot from New Hampshire.

“I feel really good about our ability to quickly scale up. We have run a very smart and efficient campaign,” Christie’s senior adviser Mike DuHaime told the Washington Examiner on Monday.

This year, late breaking candidates could face higher hurdles than existed in the last two Republican nomination fights, testing Christie’s viability under the rosiest of scenarios. The field is more crowded, the competition more stiff, and the primary calendar more daunting.

The candidates blocking Christie’s path to the nomination have more resources at their disposal and have for months been assembling networks of grassroots activists and party officials in the later voting states. Where Christie would have to “scale up” after New Hampshire votes on Feb. 9, for a slew of March primaries across the south and Midwest, other candidates would simply have to turn a key to activate existing political infrastructures.

Among the better-organized contenders are Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; and in some of the later states possibly, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and New York businessman and reality television star Donald Trump. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush also is more prepared than Christie, organizationally, to go the distance.

This deficiency is magnified by the fact that Christie isn’t guaranteed to be the only candidate left standing from the GOP’s governing wing, as might have been the case in past primaries, if he manages to emerge from the early voting states with momentum. In a preliminary move to address this, Christie is planting a flag in South Carolina. He has begun coalescing a Palmetto State team and plans “several” trips there this month.

As it stands, said one Republican insider based in South Carolina, the Christie campaign in the third voting state, and first southern primary, is “eerily reminiscent of the [Rudy] Giuliani campaign. I have seen no evidence of a Christie ground game.” Christie’s team in Iowa is strong, and he has not ignored the state that will vote first, on Feb. 1, although his polling numbers are still weak there.

In 2008, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, another charismatic northeastern Republican with a national profile, entered the GOP primary with much promise and for a time led the national polls. His campaign never caught on with voters. DuHaime is a veteran of that campaign, although there are several potentially crucial differences between Giuliani then, and Christie now.

Christie’s strong retail skills, relationship with the GOP base and crossover appeal made him an early frontrunner for the 2016 nomination until he was hobbled by his chummy relationship with President Obama in the aftermath of a hurricane that devastated the Jersey Shore and a scandal over a bridge closure engineered by his close aides as political payback to a local official who wouldn’t endorse him for re-election.

Christie denies any wrongdoing, and his likability and talents as a communicator have helped him climb back into the presidential race. He’s running fifth nationally in the RealClearPolitics.com average, after beginning the race last year as an asterisk, and fourth in New Hampshire. If Christie can parlay the Granite State into competitiveness down the stretch, his senior advisors see opportunity in a primary calendar that is heavy with states that will allot their nominating delegates proportionally.

As long as the victor is held under 50 percent, and Christie can corner the market on his class of GOP voter, his team sees a path to the nomination via proportional states because they view many congressional districts within the states that will vote in March as winnable, even if the governor can’t win the state out right. On his campaign’s radar are Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina — and Ohio, if Gov. John Kasich is out of the race by then.

Additionally, they see some March states as Christie territory, including Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, Vermont and Virginia. Among the regions they’re confident about are the Northeast, mid Atlantic, West Coast and Southwest. The Christie theory of the race is viable, but not necessarily likely. Indeed, many Republican strategists see the governor as having the one of the toughest paths to Cleveland, site of the nominating convention this July.

Once South Carolina and Nevada have voted on Feb. 20 and Feb. 23, respectively, the next big test could come March 1, when southern states that have banded together for a super Tuesday “SEC” primary are set to vote. Florida, Idaho, Minnesota and Utah could also be inhospitable territory for Christie. Cruz has devoted significant resources and time to these states, particularly to the SEC groups, as have Rubio, Carson and Trump.

Christie would be playing catch-up, and an experienced Republican strategist who has advised candidates in many of those states said he would be traveling a tough road.

“The fact that national security is driving the conversation and nuance is out of fashion gives him a chance,” this GOP insider said. “But he is the easiest to polarize on ideology if you are running the Cruz campaign in the later contests.”