While most observers of the national GOP Presidential polling will focus on Quinnipiac University’s showing of Donald Trump 28, [mc_name name=’Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001098′ ] 24 as a possible sign of things to come, there’s another story that I think deserves mention.

Jeb Bush has now fallen into sixth place nationally, not just in New Hampshire, thanks to a good run of polling by another second-tier contender.

That second-tier contender is Chris Christie. The Governor has tied or led Jeb Bush in the last three national polls (5-3 in CNN/ORC, 6-4 in Quinnipiac, and 3-3 in Fox News).

Sure, it’s important to note that neither man is much of a risk to win anything at that rate, given that Bush is within the margin of error of zero in all three, which means Christie is just barely on the radar. But, given that we’re letting candidates polling near zero into the big boy debates, and letting them pretend they have meaningful candidacies at this point, this shift matters.

So we’re now in a spot when Bush is in sixth nationally, sixth in New Hampshire, fifth in Iowa and South Carolina, and has finally gotten past Ben Carson to be fourth in Florida. What is his path to victory?

They say that [mc_name name=’Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001098′ ] is unable to reach out to expand the base. That’s not true, but what seems to be true is that Jeb Bush can’t even start by securing the base. It’s time he quit the race like a mature adult.