INSIDERS CHEER AS TIM SCOTT GOES FROM ALSO-RAN TO SOMEWHAT MORE POPULAR ALSO-RAN

In the Republican presidential race, NBC News assures us that Tim Scott has the Big Mo:

Tim Scott's standing on the rise among GOP voters, poll finds

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott is getting the attention of Republican primary voters.

Really? So his polls numbers are way up?

No, not exactly:

He gets support from just 3% of Republicans as their first choice in the GOP presidential primary, according to the latest national NBC News poll. But that's just part of the picture: The number of GOP voters who see Scott as their second-choice candidate has risen sharply — more than any other Republican candidate polled by NBC News from April to June.

In June, 12% of those polled said the same, a 9-point increase over the 3% who said so in April.

So he's at 3% -- tied for sixth place (with Vivek Ramaswamy), and 48 points behind front-runner Donald Trump -- when poll respondents are asked to pick a candidate. But when they're asked to pick a second-choice candidate, Scott is ... still 19 points behind Ron DeSantis, who's the second choice of 31% of respondents. Scott is tied for second with Trump (who's not in the lead as runner-up because so many respondents have him as their first choice).

I suppose Scott's improved second-choice number is a sign of progress, but the following facts are still true: Among the presidential candidates, Donald Trump is the GOP voter base's overwhelming favorite, and Ron DeSantis continues to be the base's second choice, by far. These two are in first and second place in every national and state poll.

Jacob Rubashkin has similar kinda-good news about Scott's standing in Iowa, where he's doing a lot of advertising:

A June 10-12 likely voter survey conducted by McLaughlin & Associates for the Trump campaign found Scott in third place in Iowa with 9 percent, behind only Trump (51 percent) and DeSantis (19 percent) but ahead of former Vice President Mike Pence and fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador.

That’s an 8-point jump from Scott’s position in McLaughlin’s previous Iowa survey for the Trump campaign.

Yes, it's an 8-point jump, but Scott is still 43 points behind Trump and 11 points behind DeSantis.

Two polls from GOP firm National Research Inc. commissioned by the Trump-supporting website American Greatness display a similar trend. National Research’s May 9-11 poll of Iowa found Scott with just 1 percent support.... A month later, National Research polled again and found Scott had moved to third place behind Trump and DeSantis...

Wait for it:

... albeit with just 5 percent of the vote.

In that poll, he's 34 points behind Trump and 20 points behind DeSantis.

You'll say that progress is progress, especially with many months to go before the voting starts. You'll say that voters in Iowa are still getting to know Scott (although the same is true for DeSantis). But in South Carolina -- Scott's home state -- National Research conducted a poll June 19 through June 21, and Scott finished third, at 10%, 31 points behind Trump and 8 points behind DeSantis.

But political insiders want an exciting horserace, and they want Scott to do well, for several reasons: (1) He's Black, and they'd like to be able to report that the GOP is a diverse party and not a party of angry white racists. (2) He has a reputation as a nice guy (unless you're a a Democrat, especially a Democrat named Barack Obama, or you want an abortion, or are trans) -- political insiders desperately want the GOP to start seeming nice again (even if its policies are still mean-spirited and punitive).

And (3) Scott is a favorite of Wall Street. The "liberal" media always prefers the candidates Wall Street prefers. (Chris Christie is the other Wall Street favorite in the GOP race, and therefore the other media favorite.)

I could be wrong about this, but I'm willing to bet that Tim Scott has plateaued. Nevertheless, we'll probably be told he's surging until the voting starts, when we'll find out just how popular he really is.