Voters want a clear alternative to Trump and Cruz.

There are good nights in politics. There are bad nights in politics. And there are dark nights of the soul in politics.

For Republicans who hoped the New Hampshire primary would clarify the muddled and menacing race for their party’s presidential nomination in a way that did not point to the name “Donald Trump,” Feb. 9 was a very dark night of the soul.

All that Republican National Committee insiders, congressional leaders and the grasping corporate elites they represent wanted was a little clarity, a sense of who they might coalesce behind in order to see off the looming threats posed by a billionaire (Trump) whose over-the-top populism could make Pat Buchanan blush and a senator (Ted Cruz) whose extremism would make Barry Goldwater blush. The point, of course, is that both Buchanan and Goldwater lost.

The hope of the elites was that New Hampshire would produce an appealing alternative to Trump and Cruz. Instead, voters turned out in record numbers to give Trump a huge win and to give Cruz a third-place finish in a state where the Texan was never expected to run all that well.

What of the alternative?

New Hampshire gave a “good enough” second-place finish to Ohio Governor John Kasich, who appealed to moderates in a party that has few moderates left outside New England. Kasich won by pouring all of his campaign’s energy into finishing second in New Hampshire. He got that. But history does not provide much encouragement: In 2012, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman ran a similar campaign, finished a solid third in New Hampshire, then realized he had nowhere to go. Less than a week after his New Hampshire “success,” Huntsman suspended his campaign.

Worse yet for the elites, New Hampshire Republicans vetted at least two other alternatives – in the form of former governor Jeb Bush and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Bush’s bumbling campaign has been a study in disappointment; Rubio admitted that what looked like a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire was a “disappointment.”

But they are both going on to the next Republican race in South Carolina, as part of a five-way slog that will be nasty, brutish and long.

This is a nightmare scenario for the elites. After Bush stumbled in debate after debate after debate, many major donors and party strategists began to look longingly at Rubio. Yes, Rubio was young and perhaps a bit ill-prepared, the argument went, but he was on message and often quite articulate. Then, under pressure from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the last debate before the New Hampshire primary, Rubio was exposed as a vapid careerist stuck on repeat. That did not get Christie a good enough finish to maintain a credible candidacy.

Christie had a way out; he could quit. The Republican elites have no way out. They are going to be stuck in this dark night of the soul for a good deal longer.

JOHN NICHOLS is The Nation’s national affairs correspondent.