Yeah, the problem was that it went back to Jan 1st. If they had done it by the last 5, Rand would have almost definitely edged out Christie for 6th nationally.
The last 5 on RCP:
Christie
3
3
1
4
4
Total 15 = 3% avg
Rand
n/a
5
4
3
1
Total 13 = 3.25% avg
Rand wasn't included in the most recent poll, but he would have only needed 2% to tie Christie's avg, and 3% would have beat him. And the other PPP poll after Iowa had Rand at 5% so we can be pretty sure that he would have at least hit 2.
However, since they went all the way back to Jan 1st, Christie's avg is 3.18%. Rand would have needed to get 9% in that latest Quinnipiac poll to tie Christie.
Even if Rand had only received 5%, his average from Jan 1st would have been 2.82%...
0.36% behind Christie. It's insane to keep someone out of a debate over 0.36% - but we've seen before that they would have.
Plus, they put more weight in to polling than actual voting results. When considering polls they included top 6, but when using actual votes from Iowa it's only top 3.