Poll: Trump maintains lead, Christie climbs in New Hampshire
Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican field among likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire, but Chris Christie has doubled his support, rising to the second most-favored candidate, according to a new poll.
A WBUR survey released Friday shows Trump increasing his base of support in the state to 27 percent, up four points from the last poll in mid-November and the real estate mogul's strongest showing to date. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has spent a significant amount of campaign time and resources in the state, rose to second place in the poll with 12 percent of support. Christie leads the second tier of candidates, followed closely by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 11 percent and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 10 percent.
The only other candidates to draw in over 5 percent of the vote: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (8 percent), Ohio Gov. John Kasich (7 percent), and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson (who dropped seven points to 6 percent of support). Nine percent remain undecided with less than two months until the state's primary.
The poll also found Florida Sen. Marco Rubio led the GOP pack on favorability, coming in with a net positive rating of 35 points. Donald Trump's favorable rating is small in comparison, with a net positive of 3 points.
As the threat of terrorism rises on Americans' radars, Trump's controversial call to block all Muslims from entering the United States hasn't appeared to impact the state's likely primary voters. WBUR conducted the poll on Sunday, a day before the billionaire proposed the Muslim ban, and continued the survey through Tuesday. After Trump made those comments, his support still remained the highest of any other Republican candidate. That result may not be surprising, especially as eighty-seven percent of voters surveyed said that the Islamic Sate of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) posed a major threat to the United States.
MassINC conducted the poll for WBUR from Dec. 6-8, surveying 402 likely Republican primary voters in the state via landlines and cellphones. The margin of error is 4.9 percentage points.