Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has pulled within four percentage points of longtime party front-runner and former United States president Donald Trump in a New Hampshire poll. According to a report by The Guardian, the poll was released on Thursday and asked voters whom they preferred in the New Hampshire presidential primary on January 23 next year. Haley earned 29 per cent support to Trump’s 33 per cent.
This showed that the gap between Haley and Trump was within the poll’s four per cent margin of error after Trump held dominating polling leads in the race for the Republican White House nomination.
Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor was ranked third, garnering 13 per cent support. On the other hand, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got six per cent support while Vivek Ramaswamy received 5 per cent support.
Haley doubled support in New Hampshire since Sept
The New Hampshire poll came a day after a poll from the Saint Anselm College New Hampshire Institute of Politics showed that Haley had doubled her support in the state since Sept. This seemingly cemented her as a clear alternate choice to Trump for Conservative voters.
However, the findings of Saint Anselm’s survey were more favourable to Trump showing him with a 44 per cent to 30 per cent lead over Haley, The Guardian reported.
Trump’s mixed reactions to New Hampshire poll
The report further said that Haley’s strong poll showings appear to have drawn mixed reactions from Trump. On Friday, he hit out at Haley in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “Fake New Hampshire poll was released on Birdbrain. Just another scam!”
On the same day, Trump spoke with radio show host Hugh Hewitt and dismissed the poll by saying it was fake.
However, a report by CBS News on Friday said that Trump had been asking his allies for their thoughts about Haley as a potential vice presidential candidate.
