Support for Rubio, Kasich and Christie rises in New Hampshire
Donald Trump and Ben Carson are still leading among Republican presidential candidates in New Hampshire, but support for Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Chris Christie has climbed substantially, according to a WBUR poll released Wednesday.
The poll found 18 percent of likely GOP primary voters would back Trump and 16 percent said they support Carson. But their support has dropped by 4 percentage points and 2 percentage points, respectively, since September.
Eleven percent said they would back Sen. Rubio, up 9 percentage points since September. Ten percent said they would support Kasich, governor of Ohio, which went up by 1 percentage point. Eight percent said they would back New Jersey Gov. Christie, improving 6 percentage points since September.
Support for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas, and Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky, are in the single digits.
Christie, who has been campaigning frequently in the key early voting state, has also seen improving favorability numbers there. In the last WBUR poll from September, 39 percent gave the New Jersey governor a favorable rating and same amount gave him an unfavorable rating. Now, 51 percent said they view Christie favorably while 31 percent view him unfavorably. Thirteen percent said he did the best job in last week's third GOP presidential debate, 27 percent said Rubio performed the best and 20 percent said the same about Cruz.
A Monmouth University poll released Monday also found that Trump and Carson were in first and second place in New Hampshire, but Rubio's numbers have been rising. Thirteen percent said they would support the senator from Florida, tripling support from September.
The latest WBUR poll measured 400 likely GOP primary voters between October 29 and November 1 with a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percentage points.