Donald Trump is holding onto his sizeable lead over surging challenger Nikki Haley in New Hampshire with the primary just five days away, but Haley continues to close the gap, according to the latest Suffolk University/NBC10 Boston/Boston Globe tracking poll.
The poll results, released Thursday morning, have Trump holding steady at 50%, while Haley jumped two percentage points to 36%. Ron DeSantis remains far behind in third at 6%, although he did pick up a percentage point from Wednesday's poll. Another 1% chose someone else, 4% were undecided and 2% refused to answer. The survey of 500 likely Republican primary voters was conducted from Jan. 16-17. The margin of error is 4.4%.
New tracking polls will be released every day leading up to the Jan. 23 primary. Check NBC10Boston.com every day at 5 a.m. to see the latest results.
You can read the latest poll results below:
When asked for their second choice, 37% of those surveyed chose DeSantis, up from 30% one day earlier, followed by Haley and Trump at 9%.
Thursday's poll also continued to show that most New Hampshire voters surveyed have already decided who to vote for and are unlikely to change their minds before Tuesday. About 85% of those surveyed said they are either "not at all likely" or "not very likely" to change their minds, down just 2% from the previous day's poll.
When Haley voters were asked if their vote was more a vote for Haley or against Trump, more people (48%) said it was a vote against Trump than a vote for Haley (45%). When the reverse was asked, 93% of Trump voters said their vote was a vote for Trump compared to only 4% who said it was really more of a vote against Haley.
Trump, Haley and DeSantis all have events planned in New Hampshire this week, though there were signs Wednesday that DeSantis is already shifting most of his resources to South Carolina. Trump gave a speech in Portsmouth, and Haley held a rally in Rochester on Wednesday night. DeSantis held events in Jackson, Hampton and Derry. Check our regularly updated New Hampshire Primary 2024 candidate tracker for the latest details.
