It's not all in your head — data shows Donald Trump is, in fact, fading from the conversation little by little. Ever since his popularity peaked on August 7, the day after the first Republican debate, with 11,000 name-drops on radio and television according to Critical Mention and Politico, it's all been downhill. The last time Trump reached just half as many mentions was August 26, a day after he butted heads with Univision's Jorge Ramos in Iowa.
Even during the second Republican debate on Wednesday evening, Trump's overall mentions began to phase out; Predictwise used hour-by-hour data to suggest Trump's likelihood of winning the nomination actually dipped from 16 percent to 12 percent after an hour of debate.
In 2012, the Republican field was also, at one time, led by big-buzz candidates who never made the cut: Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich. Of course, if Trump is good at anything, it's keeping the spotlight on him — yet even so, his decline in popularity could be much simpler than voters growing fed up with his controversial declarations or growing enamoured of a different outsider. We might finally, simply, just be bored of Donald Trump.
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