Labor Day weekend is over, meaning the world of political punditry heaves a collective sigh of relief because, according to the calendar they use, this marks the end of the summer "Silly Season" and the point where the public starts to actually pay some attention to politics once again -- specifically, the presidential race. There's some truth to this, although people in Iowa and New Hampshire have likely already begun considering political presidential candidates, and there are plenty of people elsewhere who won't get interested until we get a lot closer to actually voting in primaries and caucuses. Still, with the second Republican presidential debate due next week, I thought it'd be a good time for a quick review of where the Republican field now stands and where it could go in the very near future. My personal feeling is that Donald Trump might just be approaching a point where he becomes unstoppable, which started as a gut feeling but looks entirely plausible, given the data.

[I should mention as a technical note that all of the data I'm about to analyze comes from the 2106 GOP presidential polling page and the 2012 GOP presidential polling page, both from the RealClearPolitics.com website. I should also add that I only really paid any attention to the data on both pages from the beginning of July, the year before the actual election (any earlier polling is almost meaningless, really).]

The first question is whether anything can be learned from the 2012 race. The Republican field was similar in some ways to today's field, but there are also differences. In 2012, there was a presumptive frontrunner, Mitt Romney, who faced a wide field of challengers. While there were four challengers who overtook Romney in the polling at various times, Romney stayed in a pretty strong second place even during the challengers' peaks. He was always, at the very least, second or third choice in the field. This year's race also featured an early presumptive nominee, Jeb Bush, who faced an even-larger field of challengers. But one key difference is already apparent: Bush is nowhere near as strong as Romney was, at the start of September.

Mitt Romney hit his all-time low in the polls on the first of September, 2011. Bush is also at an all-time low in his polling. The difference is in the magnitude of the dip. Romney's low point was 16.5 percent. Bush is currently in single digits, at 9.3 percent, and he seems to be trending even lower. Bush's high point in the polls was only 17.8 percent, which he hit on July 12th. Romney, by way of contrast, kept pretty solidly and continuously in the range between 20 and 25 percent, until he began his climb upwards to victory, which started in January of the election year. Maybe this is due to the fact that the field is a lot larger this time around, or maybe Jeb's just a bad campaigner. Either way, the difference is notable. Romney never struggled as badly as Jeb already has, and Romney routinely hit high points in polling that far outstrip any numbers Jeb's posted yet. Which is why it's hard to deny that Romney was a much stronger candidate than Jeb Bush has so far been.

But the big news from the old data merely confirms a theory that popped into my head at some point during the long weekend. After watching Trump's numbers improve (yet again), I picked an arbitrary number for when Trump might just become unstoppable for the Republican nomination: a solid level of 35 percent support. It turns out my subconscious stab in the dark was pretty spot-on, at least if the 2012 race is any guide. Here is a quick summary of who peaked in the Republican race last time around, what date they peaked on, and how high they got in the Republican nationwide polling:

• Rick Perry (Sept. 12 -- 31.8 percent)
• Herman Cain (Nov. 2 -- 26.0)
• Newt Gingrich (Dec. 12 -- 35.0)
• Newt Gingrich (second peak)(Jan. 26 -- 31.3)
• Rick Santorum (Feb. 16, 34.2).

All of these "anti-Romney" candidates had their moment in the sun, and all of them drew better than 25 percent (all but Cain hit higher than 30 percent). Many of these rocketed straight up and then right back down again when they couldn't handle the national spotlight in one way or another (Perry's "oops" and Cain's history with women, for example). Gingrich was the only one to recover and have a second wave, but it peaked lower than his first. My big takeaway, however, is that nobody topped 35 percent, ever. Romney didn't even reach this height until it was pretty obvious he was going to win (Romney didn't even top 25 percent until the end of December). Newt Gingrich did very briefly hit 35.0 percent, but then went right back down.

I'm not sure why 35 percent seems to be some sort of magic number. It only represents a little more than one-third of the Republican electorate, after all. Almost two out of three GOP voters are still backing someone else, to put it another way. But 35 percent in such a crowded field means that you've pretty much eliminated almost all of the other competition. There might be one or two candidates nipping at your heels, but the rest of the field isn't even worth bothering about. When there are 17 people running, sustaining 35 percent might be enough to assure eventual victory.

When Donald Trump hit 20 percent in the polls (reliably -- in multiple polls over a period of time), the pundits all swore up and down that he had hit his ceiling. When Trump hit 25 percent in the polls -- again, and sustained it -- the pundits all said exactly the same thing: Trump was still doomed, he simply could not go any higher. Donald Trump has now hit 30 percent in a few polls. He hasn't yet proven he can sustain this level of support, but his trendline looks pretty good. Trump now holds over double the support of his closest challenger, and triple the support of the supposed inevitable nominee, Jeb Bush. Ben Carson is now on the ascendant, while Scott Walker and Jeb Bush both seem to be crashing and burning.

I see this somewhat differently than most pundits (at least, to hear them talk about it). They are, for the most part, convinced that Trump is essentially the Rick Perry of 2012. His numbers will collapse whenever that "oops" moment happens, and then we'll all go back to watching Jeb Bush take on all comers. I think this is silly, given the numbers. If anything, Ben Carson is much more easily seen as someone who could stumble badly on the national stage and watch his numbers collapse due to some ill-advised comment or debate moment. Trump, in this scenario, is this season's Mitt Romney -- always the guy everyone else has to beat, to get anywhere in the polls.

I realize some caveats are necessary. History never exactly repeats itself, one way or another. I'm only comparing one past presidential race to the one that's going on now -- if I had the time to crunch data from multiple previous campaigns, my theory might be shown to be constructed of moonbeams and nonsense. Trump might indeed be this year's Rick Perry -- who hit a high point of 31.8 almost exactly four years ago. But so far the Teflon nature of Trump's campaign (nothing sticks to him) means that even if he has an "oops" moment in a debate (entirely possible, seeing as how his first big oops moment happened while being interviewed by one of the moderators of next week's debate), his support might not evaporate the way Perry's did.

Trump's spectacular campaign has so far convinced three-in-ten Republican voters to back him. If he not only holds on to 30 percent support but also has a great debate night next week, I could easily see his rise continue. While everyone else is waiting for the "inevitable" Trump stumble (it's just gotta be coming, right?), I'm now actually pondering a different use of the word. Because if Trump hits 35 percent support from Republican voters, and holds that level for a decent period of time, then what might just be inevitable is that he's going to be the Republican nominee for president.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant