The Guardian reports:

The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has pulled within four percentage points of frontrunner Donald Trump in New Hampshire’s 2024 Republican presidential primary, a contest which could prove closer than expected for the ex-president, according to a new poll.

In an American Research Group Inc poll released on Thursday which had asked voters whom they preferred in the New Hampshire primary scheduled for 23 January, Haley earned 29% support to Trump’s 33%. That meant the gap between Haley and Trump was within the survey’s 4% margin of error after the former president had long held dominating polling leads in the race for the 2024 Republican White House nomination.

Haley’s strong showing in the American Research Group Inc survey came a day after a poll from the Saint Anselm College New Hampshire Institute of Politics found she had doubled her support in the state since September, seemingly cementing her as a clear alternate choice to Trump for conservative voters. The Saint Anselm survey’s findings were more favorable to Trump, however, showing him with a 44% to 30% lead over Haley.

But while Haley still has ground to gain to take the lead in the state, Trump coming in at less than 50% support “shows he has serious competition in the party”, the University of New Hampshire survey center director, Andrew Smith, has previously told USA Today. [Continue reading…]

Earlier this month, Politico reported:

They’re independents and moderates. They hate Donald Trump and have mixed views of Joe Biden’s job performance as president. And they just might help Republicans close a historic gender gap.

Those are the voters who tell pollsters they’d vote for Nikki Haley over Biden. But if the 2024 election is a rematch of 2020, they would back Biden over Trump.

Polls clearly suggest Haley is a stronger general-election candidate than Trump, with Haley leading Biden by 4 points in the latest RealClearPolitics averages while Trump leads the president by 2 points and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leads by 1 point. Some polls even show Haley with gaudy, double-digit leads over Biden — including a Wall Street Journal poll released hours before this column published that showed her a stunning 17 points ahead of Biden (Trump led the president by 4).

A POLITICO analysis of recent polls — and data provided exclusively by Marquette Law School pollster Charles Franklin — shows Trump and Haley would assemble different electoral coalitions in matchups against Biden. And the differences aren’t just a curiosity: They’re undergirding Haley’s case as she seeks an unlikely, come-from-behind victory in the weeks leading up to the first caucuses and primaries. [Continue reading…]