Congrats to Joe Walsh and the other guy, who now have one less competitor for the three percent of the GOP vote that’s not going to Trump.

Weird but true: It was less than two weeks ago that Sanford announced he was moving to New Hampshire on November 4 to focus all of his energy on building a following in the state. Eight days later, he’s done. What happened?

Impeachment happened, he says:

2020 Watch-New: @MarkSanford -at a news conf. outside the NH Statehouse, tells reporters "I had planned on filing on Friday (for #FITN presidential primary) but I'm not going to do that… all of the oxygen is leaving the room" do to #impeachment #nhpolitics #scpol #2020Election pic.twitter.com/37c5O89TH9

— Paul Steinhauser (@steinhauserNH1) November 12, 2019

More:

“I am suspending my race for the presidency because impeachment has made my goal of making the debt, deficit and spending issue a part of this presidential debate impossible right now,” Sanford said. “From day one, I was fully aware of how hard it would be to elevate these issues with a sitting president of my own party ignoring them. Impeachment noise has moved what was hard to herculean as nearly everything in Republican Party politics is currently viewed through the prism of impeachment.”

Was it … not clear eight days ago that impeachment is going to devour everything in its path news-wise until the president’s Senate trial is over? And/or that even if Sanford could wave a magic wand and make impeachment go away, some new Trump-related political freak show would quickly replace it in the papers? For nearly three years, Republican voters haven’t cared about the debt, the deficit, or much of anything else except judges and providing cover to their political hero. Surely that was already painfully clear to Sanford when he announced his move to New Hampshire.

So what’s the real reason he’s dropping out? Presumably it has to do with finances and him not wanting to go into debt to fund a campaign that has no chance to win. Friday is the deadline to register for the ballot in New Hampshire so Sanford had to make a hard decision. Although that still doesn’t answer the question about the curious timing: If it’s all about money, he must have seen this coming two weeks ago. Why not suspend then?

Ah well. The real action is in the Democratic primary anyway. New from Monmouth:

A 14-point jump for Buttigieg over the past three months, basically tripling his support and pushing him past a slumping Warren for the lead. He’s currently rocking a 73/10 favorable rating among Iowa Democrats, considerably better than Warren’s 69/23 split. (She was at 76/14 in August.) Is this random guy actually going to win both of the first two states over the two progressive lions of the Senate and Obama’s two-term former VP?

Nah. I mean, c’mon. There’s no way. Even if he is, uh, within five points of the lead in New Hampshire too now. Imagine the lefty rage when Mayor Pete beats Bernie and Warren in IA and NH and then Biden wins big in South Carolina, all but knocking the two great socialist hopes out of the race.

Exit question: Now that there’s a vacancy in the GOP primary, who’s going to fill it? How about … the one right-wing commentator who’s done more than any other to truth-bomb an unwilling audience about Trump?