Despite a clear breakout lead for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in New Hampshire, Granite State primary voters say they don’t like his position on immigration—and are likely to change their votes because of it.
Nonpartisan research firm Gravis Marketing found that Bush—mere days ahead of his announcement that he’s running for president, which will come a week from Monday—is at 21 percent in the GOP primary. The next best GOP candidates are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), each tied at 13 percent. Real estate mogul Donald Trump—something sure to shock political insiders everywhere—comes in third with 12 percent, a little over a week ahead of his announcement next Tuesday.
Nine percent are unsure, and 9 percent back the other establishment candidate with Bush Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), while 5 percent back Dr. Ben Carson, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are tied at the bottom with 4 percent apiece.
Perhaps the more important question in the Gravis data, which was provided to Breitbart News, is when likely Republican primary voters were asked: “Would you support immigration reform that included a pathway to citizenship for those living in the country illegally?”
A whopping 43 percent—in New Hampshire—said they oppose giving illegal aliens citizenship while only 37 percent said they support it, and 21 percent were unsure.
What’s even bigger than that is that 48 percent said a candidate’s immigration policies are likely to influence their votes, while only 21 percent said it would be unlikely to affect their votes and 30 percent were unsure.
The poll surveyed 487 Republican Primary voters between June 3 and June 4 with a margin of error of 4 percent.
Rubio is currently the only candidate who supports granting citizenship to illegal aliens, and Bush has flip-flopped from his previous support for citizenship for illegal aliens—now just supporting granting them amnesty via legal status without citizenship.
The poll also found that 75 percent of GOP primary voters in New Hampshire believe the United States isn’t doing enough to fight radical Islam in the Middle East, while a mere 15 percent do and 10 percent were unsure.
Fifty-one percent support deploying U.S. troops to fight ISIS, while 29 percent oppose doing so and 20 percent are unsure.
Last cycle, former Sen. Scott Brown nearly pulled off a historic upset–coming shockingly close to defeating Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) by focusing on a pro-American worker immigration position and a strong foreign policy. Brown would have been just the third person in American history to have been elected to U.S. Senate seats in two separate states, and the first since the 1800s. He lost by just over 3 points on election day after the debate team in the final debate–led by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos–flubbed a phony attack on Brown.
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