Former President Donald Trump has a towering 41-point lead over the rest of the potential GOP primary field in New Hampshire, per a poll.
The Emerson College Polling survey released Tuesday shows that 58 percent of Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, the first GOP primary state in the nation, support Trump in his reelection bid. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is his closest competitor, securing 17 percent of the response.
Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) sits in third place with seven percent, followed by former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) at six percent, and former Vice President Mike Pence at four percent. Two percent of respondents back former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), and former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) each took one percent of support.
Trump has a strong base of support among younger GOP voters, according to Emerson College Polling’s Executive Director Spencer Kimball:
Similar to our February national poll, Trump finds his primary base among young voters: 67% of Republican primary voters under 35 support Trump as the nominee. Unlike the national survey, where DeSantis found a base of voters over 65 and those with higher educational attainment, DeSantis holds no such base at this time among New Hampshire Republicans. Similarly, Governor Sununu is unable to surpass 10% among any demographic groups.
In a race strictly among candidates who have announced, 73 percent of Republicans back Trump, another 20 percent support Haley, and seven percent get behind entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump and DeSantis are both behind Biden in potential general election match-ups. Biden leads Trump 42 percent to 38 percent, while he also leads DeSantis 42 percent to 37 percent.
The 45th president has been riding a wave of momentum in recent weeks, according to a national Yahoo/YouGov poll released on February 28. In just a three-week period, Trump widened his lead by 14 points over DeSantis and the rest of the potential field.
The Emerson College poll surveyed 1,025 registered voters between March 3-5. The margin of error for the full survey is plus or minus three percentage points. The GOP primary portion of the poll sampled 384 respondents and has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.