Haley holds second place in New Hampshire behind Trump, polls show

Nikki Haley is holding steady in second place in New Hampshire two weeks out from the state’s key primary, two new polls released Tuesday show. But whether the former South Carolina governor is within striking distance of former President Donald Trump depends on the survey.

The University of New Hampshire/CNN poll shows the gap between Trump and Haley in the single digits, with the former president at 39 percent support among likely GOP primary voters and the former U.N. ambassador at 32 percent — just outside of the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. The poll of 1,864 New Hampshire adults, drawn from a probability-based panel, was conducted online between Jan. 4-8.

The Suffolk University/Boston Globe/USA TODAY survey, meanwhile, puts Trump at 46 percent and Haley at 27 percent. The poll of 1,000 voters was conducted Jan. 3-7 by live calls to landlines and cellphones and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Both polls back up what a spate of December surveys showed — Haley, who has the backing of popular GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, has surged into a clear second place in New Hampshire. The South Carolinian started rising in Granite State polls after the first GOP presidential primary debate late last summer, but didn’t see her numbers climb out of the teens until the end of last year, around the same time she secured Sununu’s endorsement.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, meanwhile, trails far behind in third place, with 12 percent support in both polls.

Christie has rejected calls to drop out and back Haley from attendees at his town halls and prodding to step aside from prominent Haley surrogates like Sununu. But Christie, who is staking his campaign on New Hampshire, won’t see his case helped by the UNH survey, which found 65 percent of those backing him would break for Haley if he wasn't in the race. The two also continue to split support among independents who are likely to vote in the GOP primary — a crucial voting bloc for both candidates — with Haley at 43 percent among those respondents and Christie at 23 percent.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s seen his support in the Granite State plummet over the past year, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy were stuck in the single digits in both surveys.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden holds commanding leads on the Democratic side in both polls despite passing on the state’s primary amid an intraparty spat over the order of this year’s nominating contests.

In the UNH poll, 69 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said they would write in Biden’s name on the ballot, compared to 7 percent who said they plan to support Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and 6 percent who intend to vote for Marianne Williamson.

The split is similar in the Suffolk survey, with nearly 64 percent of likely Democratic primary voters breaking in Biden’s favor compared to 6 percent for Phillips and 2 percent for Williamson.

The Suffolk poll also showed Biden beating Trump in a hypothetical general-election matchup, 42 percent to 34 percent. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now running as an independent, notched 8 percent support.