Nikki Haley cut into former President Donald Trump’s lead in New Hampshire, two weeks before the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
Polls are showing her closing in on the former president, with one survey released Tuesday putting Ms. Haley at just a handful of points away from Mr. Trump in the Granite State, which holds its primary on Jan. 23.
Mr. Trump garnered 39% of likely Republican primary voters, while the former South Carolina governor won 32%, according to a CNN poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire.
The rest of the GOP hopefuls fall much further behind: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with 12%, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy with 8%, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with 5% and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson with less than 1%.
Another poll out of New Hampshire shows Ms. Haley 20 points behind the former president. A USA Today/Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll found that 46% of likely GOP primary voters back Mr. Trump, while 26% support Ms. Haley. A Suffolk poll in early October showed Mr. Trump up 30 points over Ms. Haley.
A RealClearPolitics average of polls has Mr. Trump leading in New Hampshire by fewer than 14 points.
Ms. Haley is surging in New Hampshire while simultaneously overtaking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Iowa for the second-place position behind Mr. Trump. Iowa holds its caucuses on Monday.
“What we’ve seen over the last one-to-two months is that Haley has differentiated herself from the other Republican candidates as the alternative to Trump,” Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire survey center told The Washington Times. “Haley was the only other candidate that had room to grow.”
Mr. Smith added that the South Carolina Republican has been a “very consistent and a good candidate” whom voters see as an alternative to Mr. Trump.
Ms. Haley rose 12 points since the UNH poll in November. Her biggest support comes from those whose party is undeclared, which is New Hampshire’s largest voting bloc and allowed to vote in the party primaries.
“She has generally done, at least in the last few months, better in New Hampshire than she’s doing in any other state,” pollster Ron Faucheux said.
He said Mr. Trump fares the best among all Republican voters, but Ms. Haley could argue that she can win not only Republican votes, but secure critical independent voters, and even some Democrats in the general election to make her a more formidable opponent to President Biden in November.
The former president still performs better among Republicans and conservatives. He leads Ms. Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, by 40 points among conservatives and 37 points among Republicans.
“New Hampshire primaries can turn very quickly at the end,” Mr. Faucheux said. “There’s a lot that can happen between when the poll was taken and the primary.”
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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