Jill Lawrence of U.S. News argues that everyone but Trump, Cruz, Christie, and Rubio should get out of the race. So does Jamie Weinstein of the Daily Caller. I’ve seen plenty of other articles that say that the top four contenders are Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Carson.

Prediction markets are taking a different view. Predictwise says Rubio is likeliest to win the nomination, followed in order by Cruz, Trump, Bush, and Christie. Bush is just a little ahead of Christie. PredictIt ranks them the same way. So does Betfair. Predictwise rounds all the other candidates’ chances, including those of Carson, down to zero.

These markets may be wrong: I think they’re overestimating Trump’s chances. (As an aside, I think these rankings suggest that, whatever else you think of the prediction markets, they don’t simply restate the conventional wisdom. I’d say that the CW puts Christie in better shape than Bush.) But it seems to me there’s a reasonable case for their putting Bush over Christie. Lawrence writes, “In the Real Clear Politics average of polls, the same names crop up repeatedly in the top tiers in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina: Cruz, Trump, Rubio and – in New Hampshire – Christie.” The qualifier nullifies the sentence. Christie’s name does not crop up repeatedly in the top tiers. He is nowhere in South Carolina or Iowa: He’s even behind Rand Paul in both states. Christie is doing well in New Hampshire. He seems to be running a one-state campaign. He’s betting everything on New Hampshire. (As, less successfully, is Kasich.) That rarely works. Bush, by contrast, has a national organization. Republicans who are well-disposed to both men could reasonably conclude that they should back Bush over Christie for that reason.

Christie could end up lasting longer in the race and getting more delegates than Bush; he could even win the nomination. But it’s unlikely, and at this point it doesn’t seem significantly more likely than that Bush will win it. So I don’t think we’re justified in concluding that there are 4 candidates with a shot and everyone else is an also-ran. I think it’s closer to the truth to say that Rubio, Cruz, Trump, Bush, and Christie all have a shot.

And even the ones I don’t think have a shot–Paul, et al–may as well stay in the race, so long as they can afford it, through Iowa (for the ones on the right end of the party) or New Hampshire (for the ones on the left end of it). Maybe they will get really lucky. And the voters can winnow the field, I think, without needing a nudge from journalists.

(disclosure)