Poll: Nikki Haley Trails Donald Trump by 30 Points in New Hampshire Primary Race

FILE - President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Hannah Knudsen

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley trails former President Donald Trump by 30 points in New Hampshire’s Republican primary race, the latest UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion survey found.

The survey, fielded December 7-18, 2023, among 450 New Hampshire Republican primary voters, found Trump leading the GOP primary race in the Granite State with majority support — 52 percent.

While Haley has “surged” in the state and is in second place, she sits 30 points behind the former president, garnering 22 percent support.

This particular survey has better news for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis than others regarding the early primary state, placing him in third with ten percent support. Other surveys have been showing DeSantis in fourth place with single digits.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie falls four points behind with six percent support, followed by anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy with four percent support and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson with a single percentage point.

UMass concluded that the survey is actually “bad news for Haley” because Trump “leads in every demographic category, and Haley does worse among women respondents than men”:

The survey was also taken following New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s (R) formal endorsement of Haley, but according to the survey, Haley “has not managed to convert Sununu’s good standing into votes.”

RELATED — Sununu: Nikki Haley “Is the Path to Making Sure that Trump Isn’t the Nominee”

This poll coincides with the release of a survey from the Saint Anselm College Survey Center (SACSC) at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP), which also showed a “surge” for Haley, doubling her support in New Hampshire since September, moving from 15 percent to 30 percent. However, that percentage still placed her 14 points behind Trump in the primary race.

All the while, Haley has publicly stated that she believes the Trump campaign is getting “nervous” over her bump in New Hampshire, pointing to an attack ad by the pro-Trump PAC MAGA Inc.:

Thursday’s RealClearPolitics average of polls, which did not appear to include the latest UMass poll at the time of this writing, had Trump leading Haley in the Granite State by an average of 18.6 percent.

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