Rasmussen has this as essentially a four-man race at this point, with two front-runners and two struggling to stay in the top tier. They eliminated Newt Gingrich from the polling this time, which undoubtedly helped Fred surpass Rudy, as most Newt voters want a solid conservative alternative with national pull. John McCain and Mitt Romney didn't get helped at all by that change, both losing slight ground instead and remaining tied for third place at a distance.Keep in mind, Fred! hasn't even officially announced his candidacy. He plans to do that on July 4th (Happy birthday America!). But when he does, you can bet that that number will go up.
The second tier has all but faded from the scene. Combined, the rest of the field only gets 3%, under the margin of error for the whole poll. The only bright spot for Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, Jim Gilmore, and Ron Paul comes from the 18% who haven't made up their minds as yet -- although even if one of them got all 18%, it would onl make them third in this race.
Listening to Mark Belling sit in for Rush today, a caller brought up the only real stumbling block for Fred!--his vote to not impeach Co-President Clinton. However, considering Fred!'s position on every other issue, I can live with that. McCain is unstable, Rudy is pro-abortion, and Romney is a regular at the Waffle House. So I can overlook that one mistake from 8 years ago.
