Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is holding firm in second place a day before New Hampshire’s Republican primary election, despite his rocky performance in Saturday night’s ABC debate, according to a CNN poll released Monday.
Rubio kept 17 percent of the Granite State Republicans’ support, despite being repeatedly hammered during the debate by rival New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for his pre-packaged lines. Many pundits think Rubio’s poor debate performance stopped his post-Iowa momentum. The debate was held about midway through the poll’s survey, which was conducted Feb. 4-8.
Businessman Donald Trump remained strongly out in front, picking up 31 percent, down two points from last week’s poll. The other eight candidates did not gain or lose more than one point. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took third place at 14 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich was ranked fourth with 10 percent, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took in 7 percent.
Carly Fiorina had 5 percent, Christie had 4 percent and Ben Carson was ranked at the bottom with 3 percent. Former Va. Gov. Jim Gilmore was not mentioned in the poll results.
Trump also saw a dip in the number of New Hampshire residents who said they would never support him, from 37 percent initially to 32 percent this week.
Three-quarters of those polled were surveyed before last Saturday’s Republican debate on ABC News.
The poll was a telephone poll of 887 adult New Hampshire residents, about 40 percent of whom say they plan to vote in the primary. The margin of error is 5.2 percent.
