The latest NBC/WSJ national poll of Republicans shows Ben Carson is at 29 percentage points trotting right past Trump who still sits high at 23 percent. But what about the polls in early primary states, where the nomination will actually be won or lost? Donald Trump and Ben Carson are tied in New Hampshire polls (just under 20 percent), while Republican voters agree overwhelmingly that Jeb Bush did the worst job in the last Wednesday’s debate (36 percent). What else did the WBUR poll find?
First, it contradicted some traditional wisdom. New Hampshire primary voters do not agree with pundits. Most pundits predict that Trump’s support will eventually decline. But 1 in 4 of the poll’s respondents said that, regardless of whom they supported, they believed that the businessman would become the Republican nominee.
Less than 1 in 5 voters said the same thing about Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, or Marco Rubio.
The poll did confirm pundit’s hunches about the last debate. Half of the respondents watched last week’s CNBC debate. Of those, 27 percent said that Marco Rubio had the best performance, while 20 percent thought Ted Cruz did the best.
How can candidates do even better? Perhaps by speaking more about the issues New Hampshire voters are concerned about. Over 80 percent think that defeating ISIS is a top priority, while 25 percent think that addressing climate change is not a priority at all. You can read the full table, below.
The poll, conducted by the Mass Inc. Polling Group on behalf of WBUR had an error margin of +/- 4.9 percentage points and sampled likely Republican primary voters. It is worth noting that 95 of respondents, like New Hampshire primary voters, are white.
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