[caption id="attachment_8427" align="alignnone" width="789"] Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley attends a town hall in Indian Land, S.C., August 28, 2023. (Sam Wolfe/Reuters)[/caption]

By DAVID ZIMMERMANN. Media: National Review

Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley has caught up to Florida governor Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican race among potential New Hampshire primary voters, according to a new poll. Both Haley and DeSantis sit at 10 percent while former President Donald Trump holds a 37-point lead over his closest challengers, according to an NMB Research survey obtained by Politico. The poll, the first to show Haley tied with DeSantis in New Hampshire since the first GOP presidential debate in late August, is a relative outlier as DeSantis sits at 13 percent to Haley’s 3.8 percent in a RealClearPolitics average of New Hampshire polls. Still, the latest numbers represent a significant development given that the Florida governor was the clear second choice in the GOP primary contest before he started losing traction over the summer. In July and August, DeSantis was forced to reboot his campaign team amid criticisms that he was overspending on a bloated, inefficient operation that had failed to close the gap on Trump. Since then, DeSantis has dropped significantly in the polls. Since July 25, the day the DeSantis campaign laid off roughly one third of its staffers, DeSantis has fallen 4 points in the RealClearPolitics presidential primary polling average, from 18 to 14 points. However, DeSantis edges Haley on second-choice ballots, with 20 percent of New Hampshire voters saying they would vote for DeSantis after Trump, according to the poll. Haley remains at 15 percent on second-choice ballots. Haley received a clear bump after her performance in the first primary debate and may be able to overtake DeSantis if she gets a similar boost from the next presidential debate on September 27. According to a Wall Street Journal poll released on Saturday, Haley received 8 percent of first-choice ballots from 600 registered GOP primary voters compared to DeSantis’ 13 percent. Apart from Trump and DeSantis, Haley was seen leading the pack against other candidates, such as biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, on first-choice ballots. Christie and Ramaswamy garnered 8 percent in support on the primary ballot. All other candidates received 5 percent or less in the Friday survey. The NMB Research poll surveyed 800 likely GOP primary voters in the state of New Hampshire from August 25-31. The poll has a margin of error of 3.46 percentage points.