• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, January 5, 2016

For most GOP presidential candidates, January will be a 100-yard dash to Iowa and New Hampshire. The first week of 2016 has seen a deluge of ads in support of and attacking a variety of GOP candidates.

Yesterday, Donald Trump released his first paid TV ad online, which goes live on TV today, entitled: “Great Again.” The campaign allocated $1.1 million for Iowa and almost $1 million for the advertisement in New Hampshire, per Politico.

The ad itself dominated political shows, as Trump’s major divisive policy positions -- excluding Muslims from the United States and building a wall on the Southern border -- were front and center.

Fact checkers had another field day with Trump. The ad included a video of migrants in North Africa and tried to spin it as the Mexico-U.S. border. Responses from the campaign: it was entirely on purpose. Trump representatives say they were painting a picture of what could happen at the Southern border.

Among other front-runners, Sen. Ted Cruz needs a win in Iowa to stay relevant, despite staffers publicly stating that it’s not the case. The campaign made a significant TV ad buy in Iowa to start out the year.

Sen. Marco Rubio is far behind the front-runners in both Iowa and New Hampshire, but is still the expected GOP nominee on PredictWise. He put out a TV ad on Dec. 30 in New Hampshire, called “Lunatic,” which frames his foreign policy knowledge while directly attacking the Obama administration.

Jeb Bush, flush with cash, needs some unforeseeable miracle to revive his nomination chances. The campaign released a TV ad in New Hampshire titled “Force” -- a state he’ll probably need to win. Unfortunately for the Bush campaign, he’s slipped to sixth place there.

Rising in New Hampshire polls, Gov. Chris Christie faces the strongest and largest number of attack ads yet this cycle. One especially poignant ad released by a pro-Rubio super PAC ends with: “Chris Christie: One high tax, Common Core, liberal energy loving, Obamacare Medicaid expanding President is enough.”

Establishment candidates need to start consolidating support, as do the candidates focusing on the evangelical vote in Iowa (notably Cruz and Ben Carson). For the Republicans to weather the Trump storm, they’ll need to coalesce around another candidate.

RNC chair Reince Priebus hopes voters realize that fact as early as possible.