Poll: Trump Tops 60 Percent in New Hampshire Primary After DeSantis Drops Out

A poll taken by Insider Advantage after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination Sunday afternoon shows President Trump increasing his lead over former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley among likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters, 62 percent to 35 percent.

The New Hampshire primary is this Tuesday and is open to Republicans and “undeclared” voters. It has been reported about 3,500 Democrats switched to “undeclared” before the October 6, 2023 deadline, making them eligible to vote in the GOP primary.

The Republican field has thinned this month with Trump gaining endorsements from former rivals Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tim Scott (SC), North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and DeSantis. Haley was endorsed by former candidate former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (R) endorsed Haley and has campaigned with her across the state.

A press release by Insider Advantage on the New Hampshire poll includes the observations that “undeclared” voters are not a factor in the race and that Trump immediately picked up support from DeSantis voters on Sunday that put him over 60 percent:

A Sunday InsiderAdvantage poll of 850 likely voters in the New Hampshire GOP primary, conducted after Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the suspension of his campaign for the Republican nomination for president and endorsement of Donald Trump, shows former President Trump leading former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley by a substantial margin. The poll conducted January 21 has a margin of error of 4.32% with 95% confidence level.

The Results:

Nikki Haley: 35%

Donald Trump: 62%

Undecided: 3%

InsiderAdvantage’s Matt Towery: “I have polled New Hampshire presidential primaries for many years and fully understand that this is a state that is hard to poll and where respondents sometimes are “playful” in their answers to pollsters. With that in mind, it appears that a major consolidation took place when Ron DeSantis’s name no longer was part of the survey. Of course his name will still be on the ballot so there will be some minor difference in results. That said, Donald Trump accelerated his lead from the fifty-percentile range in the majority of earlier polls, to the sixty-percentile range in this survey. I have stated in the past that I felt New Hampshire might be a bit of an aberration as compared to most other GOP caucuses and primaries (more moderate with many independents voting). However, with DeSantis’s announcement even the “Undeclared Voter” demographic no longer appeared to change the results. There has been a theory that Democrats voting as undeclared voters, along with moderate Republicans following the lead of New Hampshire’s Governor Chris Sununu, would pile in to create a substantial threat to Trump. I could certainly see the final results drifting into a 58%-41% (1% to others) Trump/Haley situation, but could just as easily see Trump continue upwards past the 62%-35% level. Trump respondents seem resolute in their support in the survey and that suggests that they have a high likelihood to turnout to vote on Tuesday. Ironically we polled Trump at a 51% win in Iowa (he received 51%) which was lower than that of many other public pollsters. We generally tend to under-poll Trump this year, so these numbers are a bit more substantial for him than expected.”

Trump held a rally in Rochester Sunday night where he spoke about leading Joe Biden in a new Rasmussen poll:

THANK YOU ROCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE! pic.twitter.com/uCzd9CJsPa

— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) January 22, 2024

President Trump in New Hampshire: “We’re also dominating Crooked Joe Biden in the general election. We’re up eight points over Biden in a brand new Rasmussen poll… and Haley is down.” pic.twitter.com/qdHciko2bh

— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) January 22, 2024