Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has come within 4 percentage points of former President Donald Trump, currently the front-runner for the party’s nomination, among likely Republican voters in New Hampshire, a new poll has found.
Released on Thursday, the survey from American Research Group Inc. found that 33% of likely GOP primary voters in the Granite State prefer Trump as the nominee, compared to 29% who prefer Haley. The margin between the two candidates is the closest any New Hampshire poll has recorded in months.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came in third, with 13% support, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with 6%, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy with 5%, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson with1%.
Some 12% of repondents were undecided and 1% said they would support someone else.
Trump held a 1-point advantage over Haley, 33% to 32%, among those who said they would definitely vote in the primary on Jan. 23.
Among those who said they would probably vote in the state’s first-in-the-nation primary, Trump had more of an edge, with 33% favoring the former president, 18% backing Ramaswamy, 14% supporting DeSantis, 9% preferring Christie, and 8% saying they’d vote for Haley; 16% of those voters were undecided.
Trump was ahead of Haley by 12 points among registered New Hampshire Republicans, 39% to 27%, while Haley was up by 9 points over Trump among undeclared voters, 33% to 27%. In New Hampshire, undeclared voters are eligible to participate in the primary.
For Christie, undeclared voters were the biggest source of support, with 23% saying they would cast their ballot for the former Garden State governor.
Haley has a slight advantage over Trump among likely voters age 50 and older, with 30% supporting her for the nomination, versus 29% supporting Trump.
With voters aged 18 to 49, however, the former president is beating his former United Nations ambassador by 10 points, 39% to 29%.
Male respondents were slightly overrepresented in the poll. Still, 39% of them said they’d be voting for Trump in the primary, compared to 25% who said they plan to vote for Haley.
Among women, Haley took the top spot, with 35%, while Trump came in second place, with 26%.
Haley’s campaign was bolstered earlier this month when New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu endorsed her for the nomination. Strong performances in the four Republican primary debates helped boost her numbers, as well.
She has also performed better than Trump in theoretical head-to-head matchups with President Joe Biden.
On Friday, Trump dismissed the poll and Haley’s chances during an interview with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt. He later took to his social media platform Truth Social to rail against the “fake” poll.
“Fake New Hampshire poll was released on Birdbrain,” Trump wrote, referring to Haley by the nickname he coined for her in September. “Just another scam! Ratings challenged FoxNews will play it to the hilt. Sununu now one of the least popular governors in the U.S. Real poll to follow.”
The poll was conducted Dec. 14-20 and surveyed 600 likely Republican primary voters living in New Hampshire, including 361 registered GOP voters and 239 undeclared voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.