In an interview earlier this week with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, the New Jersey governor shared a hopeful development on that front. “I don’t think that they care exactly how you do it – they just want to be safe”.
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Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., used a relentless schedule of town hall meetings in New Hampshire to pull a massive upset on George W. Bush in 2000 and save his slipping bid in 2008.
The Adrian Gray Consulting poll shows Trump leading Rubio narrowly among all GOP voters in the state, Rubio is in first place among the Republicans “very likely” to vote in the primary. It found Donald Trump still leads the field in New Hampshire with 27 percent support.
The poll included 402 likely Republican primary voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
A 5 point lead can easily evaporate overnight, especially if Christie has a great debate or two before the vote. It is far ahead of jobs and the economy, now at 18 percent, and immigration at 12 percent. He also recently vetoed a bill that would have required law enforcement to be notified when a person who had been institutionalized for mental illness seeks to expunge his mental health record when applying for a gun permit.
Trump is seen as best able to handle ISIS, with 33% saying he is the candidate best able to handle the militant group. “He’s seeing people for the third of fourth time”, Brown adds.
Because Christie’s in third place, here are three positive and three negative takeaways from the poll you can use, should you find yourself talking politics at an upcoming holiday party. Voters, says Christie, are responding positively to his experience as a federal prosecutor and his commitment to taking the terror threat seriously.
“They should be getting a closer look but can’t break into the narrative”, he said. “They don’t understand why the president won’t talk about it”.
At the same time, Smith said, no conclusions should be drawn about the outcome of the primary based on the current polls. “Whenever in the past he has said things that are equally out of bounds, he actually bounced up in the polls”. “That’s in Chris’s wheelhouse”.
Christie is several solid punches away from challenging Rubio’s ascendency as the Establishment’s best shot to stay in the game by surpassing him in New Hampshire. In a name, says Brown, it’s Donald Trump. That, Brown says, is the other of Christie’s challenges.
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Second, while Trump has 27 percent in New Hampshire, the combined total of the candidates who appeal to somewhat conservative voters – Bush, Christie and Rubio – is higher (without leaners, 28 percent, and with leaners, 31 percent).
