Paul, Santorum and others have few supporters to shift to survivors.
Almost certainly Fiorina’s bump came from voters leaving Jeb. They will stick with her til the CNN debate. Then they might go back to Jeb, or go to Kasich, or stay with Fiorina, depending on what happens between now and then.
The same holds true for Carson-Rubio-Cruz ... and to some extent Walker. They draw from the same constituency. Many who choose one of them in a poll might just as likely choose the other. The survivor of this group will not be Walker. He did poorly in the debate. So picking up Walker’s supporters by one of the other three will give that person a bump and make him look like the horse to get on.
Local supporters of Carson-Rubio-Cruz-Walker would be smart to make friends with each other and build a winning coalition.
Cruz is as “evangelical” as Huckabee. Huckabee will get Santorum voters before Huck folds. So far, Cruz is not positioned to get the Huckabee-Santorum voters. But he should not take their switch to him for granted, even though Carson-Rubio-Walker might have less attraction for the single issue voters.
The Trump voters will never go to Jeb. But mad-as-hell anti-PC, anti-establishment voters can go to Carson-Rubio-Cruz.
A campaign that started at Liberty University, has been to hundreds of churches and related meetings and has a well-known evangelical preacher as a surrogate? Really?
Rubio isn’t in that-he’s a lib and an establishment guy.