Start typing the words "is Rand Paul..." into Google, and the search engine's autocomplete function fills in the rest of the question: "... still running for president."

The answer, of course, is yes — but barely. Indeed, if Paul were a patient on the operating table, he'd be flatlining right now. By nearly every measure, the Kentucky senator's White House bid is struggling to find a pulse.


Paul seemed to be on the verge of being demoted to the undercard stage in the next Republican presidential debate, the result of poll numbers that haven't moved above single digits since the summer. But on Sunday, it was announced he would be included.

He isn't faring much better in state polls, either. A WBUR poll in New Hampshire released Friday found him at 4 percent in the GOP field, up just 1 point from late October — when WBUR last released a survey — and down from earlier in November. The latest Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll, out Saturday, found him at 3 percent in Iowa, down 2 points from October.

Now, amid growing speculation that Paul's presidential bid will soon come to an end, his campaign has been forced to insist that he isn't dropping out, and that he really does belong on the main debate stage on Tuesday.

“The challenge from Day One for Rand Paul has always been expanding his support outside of his father’s network,” said Michael Dennehy, referring to 2012 candidate Ron Paul. Dennehy, who ran Sen. John McCain’s successful presidential political operation in New Hampshire, sees few signs that Paul has met that challenge.

The picture is similarly grim in Iowa, another early contest that, at the very beginning of the 2016 presidential cycle, seemed ripe for Paul’s libertarian-flavored message. But the younger Paul is averaging just 3.2 percent in the state’s polling, and Republican observers there are skeptical that he can tap some hidden reservoir of support.

“There just doesn’t seem to be much excitement for him out here in Iowa,” said Eric Woolson, who served as a top Iowa adviser for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and who is now neutral. “It just seems like among the activists, there doesn’t seem to be much interest from them.”

None of this is due to an absent Paul political operation. Since the last Republican presidential debate on Nov. 10, he’s held more than 26 campaign events (six of which were in Kentucky, where the senator is also running for reelection) and just finished another handful of events in New Hampshire over the weekend. The pro-Paul super PAC Concerned American Voters (which is not blessed by the campaign, unlike America’s Liberty PAC) has been especially active in volunteer organizing and voter outreach in Iowa.

But Paul’s presidential campaign hasn’t run a television ad in nearly three months and has not yet reserved any air time this year or next year — a reflection of his dire financial straits.

His last redoubt of support — social media — is not looking so strong, either.

Paul’s Facebook numbers have barely budged, while those of his rivals have surged along with their popularity. Between Sept. 10 and Oct. 10, for instance, Paul was the topic of conversation among 1,509,000 people on Facebook and saw 4,586,000 interactions (an aggregation of likes, posts, comments and shares on a candidate’s page). Between Nov. 8 and Dec. 8, Facebook counted 1,569,000 people and 4,402,000 interactions for Paul. By comparison, Sen. Ted Cruz, amid a dramatic surge of support in Iowa, was counting 4,095,000 people and 18,708,000 interactions on Facebook — up from 2,846,000 people and 11,742,000 interactions in October.

Paul was already having difficulty making his dovish case on foreign policy to skeptical Republican voters — and then the Paris and San Bernardino, California, attacks happened. A CNN/ORC poll conducted right before the San Bernardino shooting found that just 1 percent of those surveyed said Paul could best handle the Islamic State, and 3 percent said that Paul would make the best president on foreign policy.

"I just don't think there are as many people in the Republican Party who share his isolationist views of the world, as he may have thought or as there were a year ago," said the campaign manager for a rival Republican candidate who's aligned more closely with Republican hawks. "I think that [events] have proven out that his view is incorrect."

Then there's money. Paul raised just $2.5 million in the most recently reported fundraising quarter — barely enough to keep the lights on, and down from $7 million in the previous quarter.

“I think the biggest indication of how Rand Paul is doing is the next fundraising report,” observed Dennehy, adding that previous reports “haven’t been great” but if the next one isn’t better, “the handwriting’s on the wall.”

“The first deathwatch story was written in June, and we’ve outlasted several candidates who’ve dropped out, and we continue to survive,” a top Paul aide insisted. “We’ve got a lean operation. Rand seems to attract big crowds. We’ve got great organization.”

But it seems unlikely that Paul can rebound. He’s actually grown less popular among GOP voters as the race has dragged on: In the most recent WBUR poll in New Hampshire, for instance, 53 percent of those surveyed said they had an unfavorable opinion of him, up from 46 percent in the previous poll.

“I think once you’ve been considered top tier and you fall below that, it’s so difficult to get back into that top tier,” said Woolson. “There’s probably this sentiment that we’ve given him a look and we’ve moved on to someone else.”

Steven Shepard contributed to this report.