Choose Your Own Adventure: New Polls Show Trump Is Either On the Ropes Or Lapping the Field in New Hampshire
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
A new pair of polls taking the temperature of New Hampshire GOP voters paint two completely different pictures of the state of play ahead of the January 23 presidential primary.
On the one hand, a University of New Hampshire/CNN survey indicates that former President Donald Trump is quite vulnerable and his ex-Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, is within striking distance in the Granite State. It found that while Trump remains in the driver’s seat with 39%, Haley trailed him by just seven. Notably, the same poll found that former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a fierce critic of Trump, was in third place with 12%.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a fervent disciple of Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rounded out the field at 8% and 5%, respectively.
On the other hand, a Boston Globe/Suffolk University survey also made public on Tuesday found that Trump enjoyed a commanding 20-point lead over Haley, 46%-26%.
Christie again finished in third place in the latter with 12%, but DeSantis and Ramaswamy traded places in it, with the governor garnering the support of 8% of the electorate and the novice politico earning just 2%.
Haley has been ascendant in the broader GOP primary contest and especially New Hampshire for months. Other polls conducted by the American Research Group in late December and earlier this month.
A number of anti-Trump Republicans have called on Christie to drop out of the race and endorse Haley in order to bolster her long odds of besting Trump in New Hampshire and even longer ones of supplanting him as the GOP nominee.
But Christie has rejected those calls in spite of his dismal favorability ratings with Republican voters, even in the Granite State, where he performs best. “Anybody thinks I’m getting out of this race, they’re crazy,” he declared on MSNBC last week. “I’m gonna continue to fight this as the only person who’s taking him on directly, and [Haley] can play for his vice presidential nomination.”
