Donald Trump Continues To Hold Commanding Lead In New Hampshire
Donald Trump continues to have a commanding lead in the Granite State, but it's unclear whether he can translate poll support into votes when the primary rolls around.
A new CNN/ORC poll shows that Donald Trump continues to be the overwhelming leader in the nation’s first primary state, but the question ultimately is whether he’ll be able to translate his performance in the polls into votes at the ballot box:
Donald Trump has a growing lead among likely primary voters in New Hampshire, and both he and Marco Rubio have gained ground in the state since September, according to a new CNN/WMUR poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.
Overall, 32% say they support Trump (up 6 points since September), with Rubio a distant second place with 14% (up 5 points). That 18-point lead is almost double the 10-point lead Trump held in September over businesswoman Carly Fiorina.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie holds third place in the new poll with 9%, followed closely by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (8%), Ohio Gov. John Kasich (7%), Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (6%), and both businesswoman Carly Fiorina and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 5%. Fiorina has dropped 11 points since the September poll.
The New Hampshire poll comes on the heels of CNN/ORC surveys in Iowa and nationally both showing Trump with growing leads over the rest of the GOP field. The poll was conducted almost entirely before Trump issued a policy statement calling for a temporary ban on allowing Muslims who are not U.S. citizens to enter the country.
Nearly 6-in-10 likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters now say they think Trump is most likely to win the GOP primary in the state, up 19 points from 40% saying so in September. No one else is in double-digits on this question. Looking ahead to the general, 34% think Trump has the best shot to win the White House, 17% say Rubio does, 7% say Christie and 6% Bush.
The landscape of the campaign has changed since the September poll, with foreign policy and national security taking a more prominent role. Half (50%) now call that a top issue, up from 21% in September, while the previous top issue — jobs and the economy — is now the most important issue for 18% of likely Republican primary voters.
Trump is seen as best able to handle ISIS, with 33% saying he is the candidate best able to handle the militant group. Republican voters appear divided on who else would do a good job on ISIS, with five other candidates all bunched together around second place: 11% name Bush, 9% Christie, and 7% each Cruz, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rubio.
On taxes and spending, Trump is the clear leader, with 42% calling him best able to manage government spending and 36% best able to handle taxation — his next closest competitor in both cases is Bush at 10%. Trump also holds a wide lead as most trusted to handle immigration, 45% to 14% for Rubio and 11% for Bush.
There have also been some shifts in the poll in favorability ratings since September. Rubio is now viewed most favorably, with 61% holding a positive view of him and 23% unfavorable. That’s not a significant change since his September rating, but others who were viewed more positively have lost significant ground. Favorable impressions of Fiorina have fallen from 62% in September to 49% now, and Carson has dropped from 60% in September to 47% now. Kasich’s favorability rating drops from 45% to 36%, and there’s also been an uptick in negative views of Bush, from 36% in September to 45% now.
This new poll is largely consistent with other recent polling in the Granite State in the lead it shows Trump having over his fellow candidates, and it’s also consistent with the polling averages. In the RealClearPolitics average, Trump (28.3) now has a sixteen point lead over his closest competitor, Florida Senator Marco Rubio (12.3). Moreover, Trump and Rubio are the only two candidates averaging in double digits in New Hampshire at this point in the race. After Rubio, we have Cruz averaging 9.5%, although he’s likely to rise if future polling is consistent with what the past several polls have shown. After Rubio, there’s Ben Carson who’s averaging 8.5%, but that is a number that is largely a reflection of his past performance in the polls since his slide is clearly shown in this poll where he grabs only 5% of likely voters after once being as high as 17% just a month ago. Carson is followed by John Kasich who is at 8.0%, a number he seems to be stuck at for the past two months or so. Chris Christie’s rise in the polls in New Hampshire is reflected his is 7.0%, which is considerably higher than it had been before in the past. Following Christie are Jeb Bush (6.8%), Carly Fiorina (5.3%), and Rand Paul (3.8%), all three of whom have fallen significantly in New Hampshire from where they used to be. After Paul, every other candidate is averaging 1.0% or less. The numbers for the broader Pollster average are again somewhat different, but the trends for each of the candidates are largely the same. Indeed, no matter how you look at it, New Hampshire is shaping up to be a state where Donald Trump has a firm grasp on the top position while Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz seem poised to grapple it out for second position at some point in the near future.
There are, of course, several caveats that we should keep in mind when looking at these numbers. The first one is that the New Hampshire Primary is still 63 days away on February 9th, 2016. There is still plenty of time for the polls to change, for voters minds to change, and for events outside of the election itself to influence the way that voters view the candidates. Nate Silver has already reminded us that, historically, as many as 50% of New Hampshire voters have told exit pollsters over the last several election cycles that the didn’t make up their mind for sure until the final week before the election. Given that, what we’re seeing now may not necessarily be an accurate reflection of what we’ll see when the votes are counted. Additionally, we still don’t know if the Trump campaign will be able to translate these poll numbers into voters at the polls, especially given the fact that many Trump supporters tend to be people who have not historically shown up to vote in a primary. In order to get that done, Trump will need some kind of get out the vote effort and, if past New Hampshire campaigning is any indication, he’ll need to do a lot more than the one-off fly-in/make a speech/fly-out kind of events that he has been doing in New Hampshire and elsewhere, and it will require him to do the kind of one-on-one meet-and-greet type of campaigning that Trump seems to dislike. So far at least, I haven’t seen any real indication either way of what Trump’s ground game in New Hampshire is like, if it exists at all, so it’s hard to judge at this point how this is going to pan out. Suffice it to say, though, that Trump’s numbers in these polls won’t mean a thing if he can’t get people to the polls in February, whether its in New Hampshire, Iowa, or any of the other primary states.
Beyond the primary, of course, the most immediate impact of this new poll will be the role it plays in deciding who gets invited to the upcoming December 15th Debate. Under CNN’s criteria, a candidate must average 3.5% in select national polls, or 4.0% in select polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. Based on my calculations of the numbers to date, which admittedly may not be exactly the same as how CNN is calculating the averages, as of today the main stage debate would consist of Trump, Carson, Rubio, Cruz, John Kasich, and Chris Christie. Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul remain on the bubble with their fate depending on either much better performances in any polling that comes out of Iowa or New Hampshire between now and Sunday when the window closes, or on CNN rounding up averages that are at 3.5% or higher, otherwise they will end up in the undercard debate. The undercard debate, or even the prospect of not being inviting at all seems inevitable meanwhile for Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore. At this late stage, failing the make the main stage of the debate should be viewed as fatal for any campaig, but this would seem to be especially true for Paul and Fiorina, who until now had at least been able to qualify for the prime time debate. In any case, we’ll know who qualifies for which debates by some time on Sunday or Monday.
The main takeaway from this poll, though, as with so many others that have been taken since late June, is that Donald Trump remains far ahead of anyone else in the Republican field, and the party doesn’t seem to know what to do about it.
And he’s totally ticked off because he wasn’t voted TIME’s “Person of the Year.”
Megalomaniac.
What’s really disturbing to me is that Trump is by far the most popular candidate with Massachusetts Republicans, whom you would think would favor someone less loathsome.
@grumpy realist:
I’m rather surprised he didn’t refer to Merkel as “that fat old Kraut slob.”
@CSK: I have to wonder how much of his support around there, as pointed out in other articles I can’t bother to link to now, is due to first-time primary voters. He’s tapping into a current of disaffected conservatives who, despite the lack of a ground game, will vote for him entirely off of the free media appearances he can demand.
@Tillman:
I think it’s true that part of his popularity can be attributed to the fact that he’s been a celebrity for over thirty years. And he’s sucking up all the media oxygen in the room. People know who he is. And…talk radio is pushing him.
Slightly OT, but I noticed that Carly Fiorina’s poll numbers started to decline after derided her appearance.
I live in NH and haven’t seen much evidence of a Trump organization. Calls and mailings from the other candidates, in particular, Bush, Rubio and Christy, but the Donald, barely a whisper.
If the expectation that The Donald will win the NH primary by a wide margin and fails to do so, it will be as good as a loss. After all Clean Gene finished 6% points behind LBJ, but effectively won the primary.
@Jim:
But does he actually need an organization? The man makes headlines every day of the week. Why send out fliers and make calls?
Remember how Trump argued that the difference between his estimate of his worth (11 billion) and everyone else’s estimate (4.5 Billion) was due to the YUUUGE value of his brand name?
Better rethink that, Donald.
@CSK:
As an example of how well he takes criticism, he today referred to Philly’s outgoing mayor as a low life.
Yep, just the person we want on the international stage.
@grumpy realist:
Given the history of Time’s “award” I’m surprised he wasn’t named person of the year.
And seriously… Merkel?
It’s a bit sad, but also a bit hilarious to watch the GOP try to deal with the Trump phenomenon.
Now he’s yet again threatening a independent run. Before he died, Lee Atwater tried to warn them but no one listened. For all practical purposes 2016 is already in the bag for Clinton. Either Trump wins the nomination or launches a third party bid.
Talk about reaping the seeds that you sow.
@Davebo:
He can’t get on the ballot as a third party candidate in 38 states; it’s too late. But he has a third choice. He can simply relentlessly sabotage whoever the Republican nominee is, and suggest to his acolytes that they write his name in on the ballot.
My guess is that if he’s not the nominee, that’s the route he’ll follow.
@Davebo:
Pathetic but true…who else do Republicans have?
Trump’s comments now starting to backfire on him in the Mideast
Which makes me wonder–did Trump just get carried away? He has to have realized that there would be blow-back abroad against him and his YUUUUGE name. Or has he simply realized that there’s an audience for xenophobia in the US and has decided to give the rubes what they want, figuring he can ride this all the way into the White House?
Just like
every poll for the last 2 monthsMichael predicted.@grumpy realist:
Definitely the latter.
And, by the way, the rubes have decided that this shows what a patriot Trump is, that he’s willing to sacrifice his financial interests for the good of America.
@CSK: Wonder if they’ll think the same thing if OPEC gets ticked up enough to add a 50% “get back at Trump” charge to oil prices.
But with the mentality these dopes have, such activity will just be taken as PROOF! TOTAL PROOF! that those nasty Muzzies are out to get us.
@grumpy realist:
That’s the thing. There’s absolutely nothing that Trump can do or say at this point that will alienate his fan club. He could advocate setting up machine gun emplacements every six feet along the northern and southern borders and blowing away anyone who tried to enter or re-enter the country, and they’d cheer.
@CSK:
Those machine guns will be gold plated and Mexican migrant workers will pay for them..
@Grewgills:
Totally. And they’ll be yuuuuuuuge.
@CSK:
He does need a ground game. The popular expectation is that he will match or come close to his his poll numbers at least in the popular press and among the typical voter. If the polls say he is the choice of say 32% of the voters, but on primary day only gets 20% of the vote with Rubio, Christy and Bush nipping at his heels, he has lost the view that he is inevitable and voters in subsequent states will jump off the band wagon. Obama one comfortable victories in 08 and 12 because he got his voters to the polls.
@Jim:
Okay; I take your point about the ground game. But–Trump may not know he needs one. Or he may not care. If he doesn’t care, it’s for two reasons:
1. He thinks he’ll be swept into the nomination and the presidency by popular acclaim. The man is, after all, an egomaniac of epic proportions.
2. He doesn’t have a ground game because, at some point, he intends to bail.
I don’t know.
I also live in NH, and around me, there are a lot of Trump yard signs. Far more than any other Republican candidates–combined.
I’m not really certain where to land on his chances of winning NH. His campaign manager has run a number of NH races before, he knows the state, the people, and what it takes to win here–but, I haven’t seen any door-to-door, and Jim is correct in that there’s little in the way of really motivating his supporters, no mailings, etc.
If Trump’s support is among prior non-voters who don’t show up at the polls on primary day for whatever reason, that’s one thing. But if it’s disaffected Republicans, that’s another–they will show up. I recognized several of those who were interviewed on CNN yesterday morning, and they included at least one former state rep and a fairly prominent (albeit batty) Republican activist.