With 14 days to go, the race for Iowa has become a contest between two men the GOP hoped would have been marginalized by now.

Ted Cruz and Donald Trump stand alone at the top of the pack, separated by two to three points at most. According to the most recent Des Moines Register and Quinnipiac polls, their closest competitor, Marco Rubio, is running behind by double digits and no other contender stands a chance of walking away the winner.

This is not what the Republican Party expected a year ago when Jeb Bush was laying out plans to shock and awe his rivals by raising record sums of money, when Rand Paul was the outside play, when the idea that Trump might enter the race, never mind dominate it, was still something country club Republicans laughed off as preposterous.

“If you were betting on who’s going to be the Republican nominee today, you’d put your money on either Trump or Cruz,” said Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s top strategist in 2008. “And with the odds favoring Trump.”

Read the article “In Iowa, It’s Down to Trump and Cruz” on politico.com.