Mitch Perry
There are two key pieces of news coming out of the latest WMUR Granite State Poll on the 2016 candidates for president released Wednesday.
One is that most New Hampshire primary voters aren’t close to deciding on who they’ll vote for in the first primary next year. Only 5 percent of likely Republican voters tell pollsters for the New Hampshire Survey Center that they have definitely decided on their candidate of choice. Seventeen percent are leaning towards a candidate, and 78 percent are still trying to decide.
The second most interesting observation is that Marco Rubio is now the most popular candidate among New Hampshire GOP voters, with 60 percent having a favorable opinion of Florida’s freshman senator. Only two other Republicans are over 50 percent: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at 51 percent, and Scott Walker with 50 percent.
Rubio’s “net favorability” ranking is now at plus 44 percent. That’s up from a plus 24 percent ranking in February.
Donald Trump has the highest unfavorable rating at 56 percent, followed by Chris Christie (40 percent), former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (37 percent), and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (34 percent).
In terms of the actual placing in the poll, Bush leads with 15 percent, followed by Rubio at 12 percent, Walker at 11 percent, Paul at 10 percent, Ted Cruz with 6 percent, Trump at 5 percent, Rick Perry at 4 percent, Ben Carson at 4 percent, Carly Florina at 4 percent, Christie at 3 percent, Mike Huckabee at 3 percent, Bobby Jindal at 2 percent, George Pataki at 2 percent, Santorum at 2 percent, and John Kasich and Lindsey Graham are at 1 percent.
When asked who they would absolutely not vote for, Trump leads with 21 percent saying that. Christie is next at 13 percent, and Bush is third, with 8 percent of N.H. Republicans saying they would never vote for him (By contrast, only 1 percent say they would never vote for Rubio).
When asked who was most likable, Rubio leads with 17 percent, followed by Bush at 11 percent. No other candidate gets into double-digits on that question.
When asked who has the most experience, Bush swamps the field, getting 19 percent support. Walker is next at 10 percent. Rubio is only at 4 percent.
The poll was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center between April 24 and May 3. It contacted 706 randomly selected New Hampshire adults. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.7 percent. Included were 293 likely 2016 Republican Primary voters (MSE = +/-5.7), 229 likely 2016 Democratic Primary voters (MSE = +/-6.5), and 627 likely 2016 presidential election voters (MSE = +/- 3.9).
