Nikki bar set lower
HAMPTON, NH — New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu was adamant Sunday that Nikki Haley doesn’t have to eke out a win in the Granite State to prevail in the 2024 cycle, as fresh polling shows her down double digits.
Despite his past prognostications that she could score a victory in New Hampshire, Sununu argued that she would not have to start subduing former President Donald Trump until Super Tuesday.
“She doesn’t have to win. I mean, nobody goes from single digits in December to you absolutely have to win in January,” the New Hampshire Republican governor told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“The fact that it can happen at all [is significant]. Trump said he was gonna run the table and win all 50 states,” Sununu further argued, before underscoring how Haley will have a month to build up in her home state of South Carolina.
On Sunday, Haley scored a key endorsement from New Hampshire’s Union Leader newspaper.
Two fresh new polls Sunday peg Haley down double digits relative to Trump in the Republican primary for New Hampshire.
A CNN poll found Trump with 50% support followed by Haley at 39% and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 6%. The poll was conducted from Jan. 16 to 19 featuring a subsample of 1,210 likely Republican voters as well as a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
Similarly, Trump was found to tout a 55% edge over Haley at 36% and DeSantis at 6% in a survey conducted by Suffolk University, NBC10 in Boston, and the Boston Globe. DeSantis said Sunday he is leaving the race.
That poll gauged 500 likely Republican voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4. percentage points. It was taken from Jan. 19-20.
The most recent RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling shows a similar gap with Trump at 50.3%, followed by Haley at 34%, and DeSantis at 6.3%, in New Hampshire.