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Donald Trump has received a boost in New Hampshire after a poll published on Sunday showed the former president 11 points ahead of his GOP rival Nikki Haley just days before the state's primary.
Trump has been the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary throughout the 2024 election cycle. The former president won the Iowa Republican Caucus on Monday, with 51 percent of voter support and he intends to win over New Hampshire during its primary on Tuesday. However, Haley may stand in the way.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been gaining traction in the Granite State for a few months now. In early January, a CNN/University of New Hampshire (UNH) poll showed her trailing Trump by just 7 points.
But now, the gap between Trump and Haley has grown into the double digits.
A new CNN/UNH poll published Sunday showed that 50 percent of likely GOP primary voters chose Trump for the Republican nomination, while only 39 percent picked Haley. The poll was conducted between January 16 and 19 and surveyed 1,242 likely GOP primary voters. The margin of error for this sample size was plus or minus 2.8 percent.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's and Haley's campaigns via email for comment.
These numbers are not too far off from recent polls. According to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, Trump currently has a total of 48.9 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, while Haley has 34.2 percent.
One poll conducted between January 18 and 19 found that among 500 likely GOP primary voters, 54.6 percent chose Trump as the nominee and 36 percent picked Haley. The poll was conducted by Suffolk University in partnership with The Boston Globe and local news station WBTS. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.4 percent.
Meanwhile, a Saint Anselm College poll conducted and published on January 16 found that 52 percent of New Hampshire voters support Trump, while 38 percent back Haley. A total of 1,398 likely GOP primary voters were surveyed and the margin of error was plus or minus 2.6 percent.
Despite Trump's lead over Haley in the Granite State's polls, Chris Ager, chairman of New Hampshire's Republican Party, said at an event hosted by Bloomberg on Saturday that Haley could "absolutely" win.
"The momentum and the expectations are all on Donald Trump's side," Ager said. "But stranger things have happened."
Meanwhile, former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said that if Haley wins New Hampshire and wins enough states to become the Republican nominee, then she could quash likely Democratic nominee President Joe Biden in the general election.
While at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Ryan told CNBC's Squawk Box, "Biden is so weak that even Donald Trump polls ahead of him, but look at Nikki Haley's polling. I mean, she beats him by like 12 points in head-to-head polls. I would prefer a candidate who I think would be a good president, and who I know is going to win and by the way, give us more seats in Congress. That's Nikki Haley."
He added: "But let's just wait and see what happens in New Hampshire and see if there's an inevitability narrative, which has credence coming out of Iowa, if it sticks past New Hampshire, and if Nikki Haley wins New Hampshire, then I think we've got a race on our hands. I want to wait and see what happens there."
Throughout the week, Trump, Haley, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been campaigning in New Hampshire in hopes of gaining some last-minute voters and maintaining the support they have already won. In Iowa, DeSantis and Haley both had significant losses, receiving just 21.2 percent and 19.1 percent of voter support, respectively.
Meanwhile, Haley earned the endorsement of New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu last month. Trump also had some recent endorsements from biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, two former GOP candidates who dropped out of the 2024 race.
Update 1/21/24, 10:51 a.m.: This article has been updated with additional information.
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About the writer
Rachel Dobkin is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting on politics. Rachel joined Newsweek in ... Read more