Take your pick: Either the suspicions that he might pack it in after Michigan are sounder than we thought or he has less money on hand than suspected and needs to dump whatever he’s got into Michigan in the short term to take the state. How could he be short on cash, though? He might not want to spend the family fortune to run for another month if he doesn’t think he can win but surely he’s willing to go deep enough into the pocket to get to South Carolina. I don’t get it. He won big last night among conservatives and border enforcers, too. Given that, why not take a chance on SC?

Riehl and Ace are touting the fact that he’s now fifth nationally in the new Gallup — yes, ‘Heads, behind even Fred — down five points from December. That reflects his loss in Iowa but not in New Hampshire, so maybe he’s poised to sink further. Rasmussen’s got him right in the thick of it at 19% in their new daily national poll, although that also doesn’t account for NH. Maybe he’s just discouraged with having to shovel crap every five days about how he loves loves loves those “silver medals”?

Note that Rudy is now in single digits nationally in the Rasmussen data.