A new poll shows Donald Trump surging to a double digit lead over his closest competitor in New Hampshire:
Donald Trump isn’t just doing well in national polls — he’s also making gains among voters in early primary states.
A new poll finds Trump with twice the support of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, his nearest competitor, among likely Republican presidential primary voters in New Hampshire.
The survey, taken by the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, New Jersey, comes after Trump’s July 18 remark that Arizona Sen. John McCain was “not a war hero” because he was captured.
“The controversy over comments about John McCain’s war service do not appear to have slowed the Trump steamroller,” observed Patrick Murray, the institute’s director.
Trump holds the top position in the Monmouth poll at 24 percent, Jeb Bush comes in second at 12 percent, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are tied for third at 7 percent.
Walker gets the highest net positive ratings, however: 57 percent positive, 16 percent negative. Trump has a 47 percent favorable rating and a 44 percent unfavorable rating.
The poll finds that Trump is taking votes from all GOP candidates, but he’s hurting Walker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz the most.
If Trump were not in the race, 40 percent of voters surveyed said they would have switched their support to Christie, Walker or Cruz.
After Walker, the poll puts Marco Rubio at 6%, Ben Carson and Rand Paul at 5%, Chris Christie at 4%, and everyone else at 3% or under. In the RealClearPolitics average for the state, Trump is in front with 16.8%, followed by Bush at 14%, Scott Walker at 8.8%, Marco Rubio at 6%, Carson and Paul tied at 5.5%, Chris Christie at 5%, and John Kasich, who has now put in a strong showing in two consecutive New Hampshire polls, at 4.5%.
The obvious headline here, of course, is the fact that Donald Trump’s strength in the polls is most assuredly not going away. Perhaps something will happen in the upcoming debates to change that, but as I’ve said before, getting rid of Donald Trump is not going to be easy regardless of how many Republicans would wish otherwise. Of more interest, though, may be the fact that John Kasich is continuing to poll strongly in an important state. As I’ve said before, a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that he has spent a lot of time there already, and that his SuperPAC put a lot of money into media buys, but it’s something worth keeping an eye on. If Kasich continues this momentum, and especially if he makes into the debates, then he could end up being the “dark horse” candidate that the political pundits start talking about when October and November roll around.
