A new poll of New Hampshire GOP primary voters from the Boston Herald and Franklin Pierce University finds Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are tied at 15 percent support, with a slew of other likely candidates close behind in the first presidential primary of the cycle. Here’s the Herald on the implications of the survey:
Bush is tied with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at 15 percent, while a pack of other GOP contenders are within striking distance, according to the poll of 429 likely GOP primary voters in the first-in-the-nation primary state.
The Herald refers to Bush losing his “frontrunner” status, even though Bush hasn’t had much of a lead in the Granite State. According to the Real Clear Politics poll average, Bush and Walker are essentially tied at around 15 percent. Bush’s largest lead in the New Hampshire primary polling since October was 5 points, and he had just 17 percent support. Bush hasn’t cracked 18 percent support in New Hampshire since announcing he was exploring a presidential run.
Not that other possible GOP presidential candidates have been doing much better. In two polls of New Hampshire primary voters, one likely and one registered, Scott Walker had a 7-point lead over his Republican rivals, getting 21 percent and 23 percent, respectively. That’s the best showing of any Republican candidate so far in New Hampshire, but it’s not a consistent trend.
Rand Paul, inheriting his father’s built-in libertarian base, has been hovering around 10 percent in the most recent New Hampshire polls, placing him in third place to Walker and Bush. In the Herald poll, Paul gets a healthy 13 percent. And despite claims that Chris Christie’s presidential aspirations are finished, the New Jersey governor appears to be hanging on in New Hampshire with an average of just under 10 percent, which is right where the Herald poll finds him. The only declared candidate in the race, Ted Cruz, polls at nine percent in the Herald poll, which is much higher than his average had been in New Hampshire. Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, and Marco Rubio also register significant single-digit support in the crowded field.
In truth, the first few months of the 2016 campaign—with Jeb Bush reeling in big donors, Walker earning early buzz and staffing up, and Cruz entering the race officially—haven’t done much to clarify the Republican nomination fight quite yet. The latest Herald poll shows there is no traditional frontrunner in New Hampshire, nor is there one nationally.
