Posted on 02/04/2016 2:29:28 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Donald Trump continues to hold a wide lead among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, according to a new CNN/WMUR tracking poll, with the pack vying for second place is beginning to break up.
Behind Trump's field-leading 29% support, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio climbs to second place with 18% following his strong third place finish in Iowa, followed by Ted Cruz (13%) and John Kasich (12%) in a near-tie for third. Jeb Bush holds fifth place at 10%, a hair behind Cruz and Kasich, with Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina well behind at 4% each. The fight for second place between Cruz, Rubio and Kasich remains within the survey's margin of sampling error.
The poll was conducted entirely after the Iowa caucuses.
Cruz has held steady compared with his pre-Iowa standing, while Kasich and Bush have each bumped up their share of the vote slightly, though within the margin of sampling error. Christie has lost some ground, dipping 4 points since a CNN/WMUR poll conducted before the Iowa caucuses.
The results reflect interviews conducted during the first two and a half days of a tracking poll that will ultimately wrap together three nights worth of interviews.
The poll finds that about a third of likely GOP primary voters say they're still trying to decide, just about double the share among likely Democratic voters. Those who are uncommitted to a candidate are less apt to back Trump, just 18% of those who are undecided or merely leaning toward a candidate say they favor Trump. Entrance polls in Iowa showed late-deciders there were also less apt to back Trump than their early-decider peers.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
“Looks like its over for Teddy.”
Actually, if Trump doesn’t hold on to his lead in NH, it’s over for Donny.
This is all about expectations. Trump built himself up as a “winner”, “that’s all I ever do is win, you’re gonna get sick of winning...”
Now he’s on very friendly turf in the northeast, and has locked down the endorsements of Scott Brown, Bob Dole and Jimmy Carter. NH is the state for moderates — in past elections, it’s gone to McCain (twice) and Romney. In this race, the two most viable moderate candidates are Trump and Rubio.
Cruz would be happy with a 3rd place finish and not hurt too badly if he finished 4th. He benefits from Rand dropping out and the Libertarian vote in the state and his solid ground game, which will be a factor in every state. These should be enough to solidify 3rd and possibly squeeze ahead of Marco for 2nd. The debate on Saturday will obviously play a major role in that as well.
As for Carsongate, outside of the Trumpbot circle jerk here on FR, this story appears to be losing traction and will likely be old news by Saturday. It may play a small role in the NH primary next week, but probably won’t be a decisive factor.
RE: Apparently this poll shows 37% will never vote for Trump, higher number than last.
As I noticed before, Trump has never, in any poll gone consistently higher than 35 to 38%.
This tells me that:
1) He has die hard followers
BUT
2) The other huge majority ( 62 to 65% ) are not attracted to him.
Where will their votes go? THAT remains to be seen.
209 likely voters, +/- 6.9 MOE
Well a Sanders win will be enjoyable to watch anyway.
With this MOE, It looks like Trump wins NH. His gap with Rubio is close to outside of that.
I don’t think Trump is going to win New Hampshire. He had it in the bag until he went all sore loserman and started acting like a two year old.
People don’t like sore losers.
Rubio is probably going to go ahead of Trump and Trump is going to have another cow.
This election may end up getting decided at the convention. In which case the GOPe candidate will win.
Watch out for Rubio. Snakes slither.
I for one will never, ever vote for Trust Fund Donnie. If he somehow got nominated and it came down to him against Hillary or Sanders, I’d vote Libertarian.
Hank
It became "Live FOR Free or Die."
Hardly. Cruz never had realistic hopes of taking the liberal ministates of the NE. That's Trump territory.
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