Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has a new reason to smile as our exclusive 7NEWS/Emerson College poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters shows her continuing to close the gap with frontrunner Donald Trump.
The former president leads the race with 44%. But he’s down five points from our polling in November. Haley is now getting 28%, a 10 point jump.
“She’s tightening the race,” said Emerson College Pollster Spencer Kimball. “She’s gaining some momentum.”
“She’s brought in this moderate group of voters,” Kimball said. “They’re independents. They’re older with postgraduate degrees. They’ve been sitting on the sidelines a little bit this cycle and, now, they seem to be shifting into her camp.”
As for the rest of the field, Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie polled at 12%. Ron DeSantis grabbed 7% and Vivek Ramaswamy had 4%.
Christie dropped out of the race Tuesday night and our poll shows Haley is most likely to benefit.
More than half of Christie voters we talked to called Haley their second choice.
Twelve percent said Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson would be their second choice.
Ten percent said they would change their vote to DeSantis.
Two percent said Trump would be their next choice.
One percent would move to Ramaswamy.
Sixteen percent of Christie voters did not have a second choice.
“When you start to look at the demographic of who that Christie voter is and you look at the demographics of who the Haley voters are, they’re very similar and so, I expect more than the six points, more than half of the Christie vote to go in her direction,” Kimball said. “Maybe nine, ten points, in which case, she’ll close this race to single digits.”
In addition to Christie, Haley is also a popular second choice for the DeSantis and Ramaswamy voters in our poll — much more than Trump.
Kimball said that fact suggests Trump may be near his ceiling and possibly within reach of Haley if she can get to Trump one-on-one.
To read the entire poll, click here.