Ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush holds a slight edge among New Hampshire voters in a crowded GOP presidential primary field and is viewed as the best option to top Democrat Hillary Clinton in a general election, according to a poll released Sunday.
Bush was the top choice for 16 percent of 400 Republican primary voters in the Bloomberg Politics-St. Anselm College poll, topping Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (13 percent) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (12 percent), among others. Bush had a bigger lead when combined with respondents’ second choice, putting him at 30 points compared with 18 for Paul, Walker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
The poll comes a week after 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney bowed out of the 2016 contest. Romney was polling near the top of the Republican field.
Twenty-eight percent of respondents felt Bush stood the best chance of defeating Clinton, the former secretary of State, whom 56 percent of Democratic New Hampshire primary voters ranked as their top choice. Eighteen percent of Republican voters said they thought Christie, Paul and Walker could beat Clinton.
But Republican voters said they thought Bush’s attractiveness as a candidate stems from his name — 59 percent owed “family connections to politics” as the main reason for his appeal, compared with 31 percent who said it was because of Bush’s “unique qualities and achievements.” That differs from Democratic voters’ views of Clinton, 74 percent of which said her reputation is owed to her qualities and achievements.
Still, 59 percent of Republican voters didn’t think a third Bush in the White House was a problem.
Bush’s support of amnesty for undocumented immigrants, however, could cause troubles for him in New Hampshire, a key early primary election for hopeful presidential candidates. Forty-one percent said Bush’s stance was a “deal killer,” while 22 percent said it wasn’t a problem.
The cell phone and landline poll of 953 likely general election voters was conducted by Purple Insights between Jan. 31 and Feb. 5. The sample of general election voters carried a 4.4 percent margin of error, while the split sample of GOP and Democratic primary voters had a 4.9 percent margin of error.
