MANCHESTER, N.H.— For John Kasich and Chris Christie, even the dream scenario here is followed by a monthlong nightmare. 
 
 Both camps have all along banked on a strong showing in New Hampshire to provide a springboard, but even if they beat expectations Tuesday, there’s trouble ahead: a plunge immediately into a string of states inhospitable to their brand of centrist politics. Conservative South Carolina and unpredictable Nevada await, followed by the dozen, mostly Southern states that have turned March 1 into this cycle's "super Tuesday." 
 
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 The trail doesn't get any easier until mid-March, and to survive until then, the candidates’ have a two-pronged plan: hope that neither Ted Cruz nor Donald Trump can build an insurmountable lead by consolidating the race’s outsider support, and work to pick up delegates on the margins, even in states where they have little hope of winning outright. 
 
 But as they scramble to keep competitive, both camps will be haunted by their all-in investments in New Hampshire. Neither has built up a significant organization in the states that will jointly make up this cycle’s version of “super Tuesday,” and outsider observers are openly skeptical that, wherever they finish in New Hampshire, either has the pieces in place to make headway in the month ahead. 
 
 "Even with an infusion of new money, there's no switch to flip to prepare a campaign virtually overnight for the battle for 674 delegates [on] March 1 and what comes quickly afterwards," said Henry Barbour, a Republican operative from Mississippi. 
 
 "Where [are they] going to then gain?" wondered John Brabender, a top strategist for Rick Santorum's now-defunct presidential bid. "In South Carolina? Probably not. Florida? Probably not ... It’s going to be a much harder climb in a Republican primary for a moderate — even who does well in a primary like New Hampshire." 
 
 Though Christie and Kasich have both built modest teams in South Carolina, there’s little else waiting for them should they reach the March 1 states. Kasich is flying to Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday night, where his team has “several paid staffers.” His team hopes to consolidate prominent establishment donors if he is able to emerge as a consensus choice, which will help with a rapid build-out across the south and a significant press in friendlier March 1 states, like Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia. 
 
 (Another round of deeply conservative states — Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana and Maine — vote on March 5.) 
 
 If he makes it to March 15, Kasich is counting on a dominant showing in Ohio, where he has a large operation waiting for him. 
 
 Christie, who’s eyeing a similar strategy, held a meeting with prominent Republicans in South Carolina last month to try to get a foothold there. He plans to be there Wednesday for a presidential candidate forum hosted by the Conservative Leadership Project. 
 
 To succeed after New Hampshire, Christie is counting on a reservoir of goodwill from the governors he helped get elected in 2014, when he was chairman of the Republican Governors Association. He has the endorsements from several governors in critical states, including Massachusetts, Maine and Maryland. He’s also got his organization in New Jersey, which would only come into play if he’s still fighting for delegates in June. 
 
 In the meantime, both candidates are relying on some air cover from their super PACs, which have supplemented ad buys in South Carolina and are taking cues from the early state results. 
 
 But their lack of significant organization in the March 1 states contrasts starkly with the infrastructure Ted Cruz has built, centered largely on tea party organizations and activists. He’s touted prominent endorsements from tea party favorites like Chris McDaniel in Mississippi and Joe Carr in Tennessee, both of which launch failed bids to unseat incumbent senators in 2014. 
 
 Rubio, too, has spent recent days rolling out leadership teams in early-March states like Kentucky and Louisiana. 
 
 Christie and Kasich are taking solace in the fact that party rules require states that vote before March 15 to award their delegates proportionally, making it harder for one candidate to pull away from the pack. 
 
 "No one is going to have a commanding delegate lead after [March 1] because of how delegates are allocated," said a senior Christie campaign source. 
 
 Kasich aides also reject the notion that it's too late for him to surge to victory, noting that he's faced doubters from the moment he decided to run. 
 
 "That theory is a fantasy from rival campaigns who also said we got in the race too late, wouldn't make the first debate, and wouldn't do well in New Hampshire," said Kasich communications director Chris Schrimpf. "They've been proven wrong again and again. The truth is we have a strong path to the nomination. We have already laid the groundwork in the March states to succeed. Other campaigns are already airing negative ads against in the coming states. They wouldn't be doing that if they didn't know we had the organization to win." 
 
 Tucker Martin, an adviser to pro-Christie super PAC America Leads, said that the organization has already booked TV ad time from Feb. 11 to Feb. 20 in South Carolina. But he suggested Kasich's super PAC, New Day for America, is also ready to go on the air in South Carolina and Nevada, touting a $500,000 ad buy encompassing both states. As for March 1, a senior adviser to the PAC suggested no one is truly well-organized in those states — not even Cruz, who's campaign has touted his heavy investment in the south. "A lot of what he’s been doing in these states has been exaggerated," said the adviser. 
 
 As Christie and Kasich scramble to find enough support to stay competitive with outsiders like Cruz and Trump, they face pressure from establishment allies to quickly coalesce behind a consensus choice. Republicans looking for a centrist alternative to Cruz or Trump worry that if a clear favorite doesn’t emerge quickly, it could be too late. If Kasich or Christie can’t keep pace with Rubio or Bush, they’ll find themselves under pressure to drop out entirely. 
 
 That pressure eased slightly Saturday night when Rubio stumbled at the debate. Coming off a strong third-place finish in Iowa, he appeared to be a strong finish in New Hampshire away from leaving the governors behind. Then he wilted under interrogation from Christie, repeating the same argument even as Christie ripped him as unable to do more than repeat talking points. 
 
 "I think that the debate changes the calculus for Chris Christie on this. The destruction of Marco Rubio in that debate was such that barring a disaster for Chris Christie in New Hampshire, I think he’s earned a ticket out, at least to South Carolina in a tumultuous race," said Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. 
 
 Schmidt added that Rubio's slip could lift all the governors still running. "It wasn’t just a bad debate performance on the scale of President Bush’s first debate performance in 2004 or Barack Obama’s in 2012, it was a debate performance on par with Dan Quayle’s against Lloyd Bentsen’s. It was a fundamental unmasking." 
 
 There’s also the threat of Bush, who is also jockeying for the establishment mantle and has a formidable war chest. His campaign is hopeful that it can finish strong in New Hampshire and rely on support from South Carolina's senior Sen. Lindsey Graham to help lift him in the next contest on Feb. 23. 
 
 While the Christie and Kasich campaigns project optimism, operatives inside the early March states are less confident about their prospects. 
 
 As one Alabama GOP operative unaffiliated with any presidential campaign noted, Trump has collected endorsements from allies of immigration hard-liner Sen. Jeff Sessions, though Cruz is vying for the senator’s nod, too. 
 
 Of Christie, the operative noted a strong relationship with the Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, who has deep connections in the state despite facing serious legal charges . Kasich scored an early endorsement from Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley. 
 
 Among establishment candidates in Tennessee, Bush has an edge because of deep ties to Gov. Bill Haslam, added one veteran establishment-oriented operative from the Volunteer State. Rubio and Cruz, the operative noted, have tapped former rivals to Haslam and senior Sen. Lamar Alexander to lead their campaigns. But he added that Cruz has the most sophisticated ground game in Tennessee: "Cruz, by far" he said, "is knocking it out of the damn park. They’ve got a really good organization." 
 
 Kentucky is wide open, with Sen. Rand Paul now out of the presidential race. Jesse Benton, a longtime adviser to Paul said the best organization in the state so far belongs to Rubio, followed by Cruz. "The governors are going to have some trouble getting much oxygen," he added. 
 
 In Louisiana, which has a its primary the same day as Kentucky's,Timmy Teepell — a longtime adviser to former Gov. Bobby Jindal, who recently backed Rubio — predicted little chance for Christie and Kasich to make inroads. "Trump and Cruz will do well. Rubio will get some votes. And if Bush is still in the race, he'll get some votes too," Teepell said. 
 
 Stuart Stevens, a senior strategist to Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign, said all of the second-tier jockeying will mean little if the candidates don't take harder shots at Trump. 
 
 "I've never seen so much effort put in by so many campaigns on fighting over the ranked position of losing instead of focusing on winning," he said. "As long as no one goes after Donald Trump in a serious and sustained way, the race is about who will be first, second or third loser." 
 
 If Kasich and Christie focus on states where their brand of politics could get them elected governor, they might be able to survive, he said. "But until somebody goes after Trump and he starts to shed those votes," he said. "It's all about the order of losing." ||||| In anticipation, Christie has been furiously hopscotching the country in recent weeks. | Getty 2016 Chris Christie to announce 2016 bid as early as next week 
 
 Chris Christie is in the final stages of preparing his 2016 presidential bid, with a formal announcement possible as soon as next week, according to several sources familiar with the discussions. 
 
 The New Jersey governor’s planning has intensified in recent days. On Monday, his campaign-in-waiting announced that he’d hired two additional staffers in New Hampshire, a state seen as critical to his White House hopes. Earlier this month, Maria Comella, a longtime Christie aide, departed the governor’s official office to take a senior position at his political action committee. 
 
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 A Christie spokeswoman, Samantha Smith, declined to comment. The governor’s aides have previously said that he isn’t likely to launch his presidential campaign until the New Jersey legislature finalizes the state budget — expected to be around the end of June. 
 
 The announcement will mark the latest chapter in a tumultuous political career. After defeating a Democratic incumbent in 2009, Christie established himself as the GOP’s foremost rising star — a swaggering, tell-it-like-it-is pol who seemed to be the antidote for a party that was struggling to win over voters in blue states. In the years since, however, Christie’s national prospects have been damaged — especially by the revelations that his top aides concocted a plan to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge in an act of political retribution against a local mayor who refused to endorse the governor’s 2013 reelection bid. 
 
 Christie’s once-stratospheric poll numbers — both nationally and in his home state — have since plummeted. A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released on Tuesday showed Christie with just a 30 percent approval rating in New Jersey, while a Suffolk University poll showed him winning the support of only 5 percent of likely voters in New Hampshire. 
 
 But Christie’s aides insist there’s room for him in the 2016 field. With former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush struggling to distance himself from the rest of the pack, they say, the lane for an establishment candidate remains open. Aides to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is also contemplating a run, have put forward a similar argument for his potential candidacy. 
 
 The hope, Christie’s team says, is that his authentic political brand will shine through, both on the debate stage — Republicans are preparing to hold their first primary debate in August — and in New Hampshire. The state has a history of breaking for moderate, independent-minded Republican candidates, and Christie has been a frequent visitor there. Those familiar with his early planning for a 2016 bid say he’s prepared to make it the cornerstone of his electoral strategy. 
 
 In anticipation of his announcement, Christie has been hopscotching the country in recent weeks, attending Republican cattle calls in Oklahoma City, Utah and Washington, D.C., where he delivered fiery speeches castigating a Republican rival, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, over national security. 
 
 “If you want to know how little [senators] know, watch what Rand Paul’s done the last two weeks,” Christie told Republican donors at a conference in Deer Valley, Utah, hosted by Mitt Romney, referring to Paul’s opposition to the PATRIOT Act. “Because, I will tell you, he’s made America weaker and more vulnerable, and he’s done it for his own personal and political gain, and he’s done it to raise money.” 
 
 Christie has also delivered speeches in early primary states in which he’s detailed his policy proposals on issues like entitlements, taxes and electronic surveillance. 
 
 In addition to building a campaign apparatus, Christie has also hired for a super PAC, America Leads, that will be supporting his candidacy. The group recently announced that it had brought on Gene Ulm, a veteran Republican pollster, and Mike Leavitt, a mail consultant. 
 
 While Christie won’t be nearly as heavily funded as Bush — whose super PAC is believed to have brought in around $100 million so far — the New Jersey governor has a team of donors that includes Home Depot CEO Ken Langone and hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller. Both are expected to write big checks. (“I am going to work my ass off to make sure that Chris Christie never needs money,” Langone told POLITICO in January.) 
 
 Earlier this month, Christie dropped another hint that he was nearing a run. While campaigning in New Hampshire, the governor said that his family — one of the last major hurdles to his entering the race — was on board. 
 
 “This is about me now,” he said. 
 
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– Despite the many, many, many times he has said he's not running, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spent the weekend considering whether he should. He discussed the logistics of a late entrance to the race with his aides as well as his family, sources tell the Wall Street Journal, and he is expected to make an announcement within days. Filing deadlines for New Hampshire, Florida, and South Carolina all loom less than a month away, and Christie would have just three months to launch his campaign, since Florida's primary is now set for Jan. 31 and other primaries could also be pushed to early January—or even late this year. Because of the tight timeline, sources say Christie's aides have become more daunted in recent days. "The afterglow of Nancy Reagan's flattery" at an event last week "has been replaced with the reality of building a state-by-state organization and the abdication of his day job to do this," says one operative. And unlike Bill Clinton, who launched his campaign at a similarly late date but who had already put out feelers and formed an exploratory committee, Christie has apparently not reached out to Republican leaders in the key early states. Says one prominent New Hampshire GOP strategist, "All that I can deduce is he's not running."