Nikki Haley cuts Trump’s lead in New Hampshire to single digits

Haley has cut into Trump’s lead in a CNN poll, but her support is less rock-solid than Trump’s

A new poll from CNN shows former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley within single digits against former president Donald Trump in the New Hampshire primary.

The poll shows that 39 per cent of Republican primary voters prefer Mr Trump while 32 per cent support Ms Haley. The next closest competitor, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, is 20 points behind Ms Haley at 12 per cent. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy polls at 8 per cent and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis polls at 5 per cent.

Support for Ms Haley increased by 12 points since the November CNN/UNH poll.

Ms Haley has enjoyed a wellspring of support in the Granite State. The state’s governor Chris Sununu endorsed her and the influential Koch Network threw its support behind her. She benefited from a series of strong debate performances, particularly when going on the offence against Mr Ramawamy when he attacked her daughter and called her corrupt.

The survey was also conducted after Ms Haley refused to answer directly that slavery caused the Civil War between 1861 and 1865, despite the fact that she pushed to remove the Confederate battle flag from South Carolina’s state capitol grounds.

Ms Haley’s fellow Republican challengers have refused to drop out, making it more difficult for her to defeat Mr Trump.

The contest in New Hampshire comes after the 15 January Iowa caucus. Unlike the Hawkeye State, which is heavily conservative and evangelical Christian, New Hampshire voters are decidedly more moderate.

Slightly more than four in 10 likely primary voters in New Hampshire are undeclared rather than registered Republicans and one-third of likely primary voters describe themselves as moderates.

But Mr Trump’s voters remain more committed to him than Ms Haley’s supporters, with 80 per cent of Mr Trump’s supporters saying they definitely decided on him compared to 54 per cent of Ms Haley’s supporters who say the same. Meanwhile, only 45 per cent of voters who are supporting other candidates are decided.

At the same time, a Suffolk University/Boston Globe/USA TODAY poll that surveyed 1,000 voters between Wednesday and Sunday found that 46 per cent of primary voters intend to support Mr Trump while 27 per cent say they plan to vote for Ms Haley.

CNN surveyed 1,864 New Hampshire adults online through the University of New Hampshire Survey Center between 4 January and 8 January with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. The New Hampshire primary will be held on 24 January.