Charts: Swapping Gingrich for Paul
(Mark Blumenthal, Pollster.com)

While it may have gone unnoticed by all but our most devoted readers, we made a small change earlier today to the charts that display results for Republican presidential candidates nationally and in each of the early primary states: We dropped the trend line for Newt Gingrich and added a trend line for Ron Paul.

Newt Gingrich has finally made it clear he will not be a candidate, and so the many pollsters that had included his name on trial heats will now stop. Meanwhile, Ron Paul’s support in New Hampshire now increased to 3.8% on our trend estimate, within a whisper of Mike Huckabee (at 4.2%).

I noticed yesterday when I checked the charts shortly after getting up in the morning. I have been checking the detail charts that show all of the candidates individually to keep up with Ron Paul. This will be much more convenient.

Ron Paul trends of note at the moment in the early states:

• Nationally, pretty flat.
• Rising rapidly in Iowa, but he’d still have to almost double his support to overcome McCain for 5th… or McCain just has to keep falling
• Rising slowly in New Hampshire and Michigan, but neck in neck for 5th place with Huckabee in both
• South Carolina, Florida: rising slowly, but has a little way to go to catch #5
• Nevada, California, New York: Nowhere

OK, now we all know Ron Paul isn’t going to suddenly rise up and be an actual contender for the nomination. But his trends in most of the early states are upward, in some cases fairly rapidly upward. If he starts breaking the 5% mark in a bunch of these states, he is going to be a major pain in the ass for the 4 or five candidates above him in the polls.