Rand Paul’s loss looks to be Ted Cruz’s gain in New Hampshire.

With polling averages in the low single digits, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul dropped out of the presidential primary on Wednesday morning. And analysis of recent polling data suggests his libertarian-leaning supporters will move toward Cruz, the brash U.S. senator from Texas.

“Cruz has a libertarian streak as well,’’ said Dante Scala, an associate professor of political science at University of New Hampshire. “His big concern is to build a bridge between evangelical, very conservative voters and also very conservative voters who aren’t concerned with religion.’’


It’s the latter of those two groups who supported Paul’s father, Ron Paul, when he received the second-most votes in New Hampshire in 2012.

Rand Paul attempted to build a national campaign out of that libertarian appeal, but Wednesday’s announcement shows that his plan fell flat. Paul was polling at just under 3 percent support in New Hampshire, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average.

“[One] reason why Rand Paul wasn’t doing well was Ted Cruz had made inroads [into the libertarian group],’’ Scala said.

Some recent polls also showed that Ted Cruz is the second choice of many voters.

Among Iowa caucus-goers who said they supported Paul, 10 percent said their second choice would be Cruz, according to a Quinnipiac poll [PDF]. Just 3 percent said their second choice would be Marco Rubio, and another 3 percent said they would move to support Donald Trump.

Overall, Cruz was the second choice candidate of 21 percent of New Hampshire Republican voters, according to a recent Monmouth poll [PDF]. That was well above the next closest candidate, Chris Christie, who was the second choice of 12 percent of voters.

Similarly, an NBC News poll from late January [PDF] showed Cruz was the second choice of the New Hampshire GOP voters surveyed, though by a smaller margin.


Donald Trump remains the dominant force in the Republican primary in New Hampshire, as the business magnate is ahead almost 20 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics polling average.

But another few percentage points for Cruz won’t hurt.

“Cruz is doing his best to consolidate that [libertarian] vote,’’ Scala said. “The good news for him is now there’s one less competitor.’’