President Biden and former President Trump are virtually tied in a hypothetical three-way general election race in New Hampshire that includes independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to a new poll.
In the latest NH Journal/Praecones Analytica poll, released Monday, Trump received 36.6 percent support, compared to Biden’s 36.5 percent. Kennedy followed the presumptive party nominees in a not-so-distant third place, with 14.6 percent of the vote.
Another 12.4 percent of the registered Granite State voters surveyed said they would vote for “none of these” candidates.
Trump leads Biden in every designated age group in the survey, except for voters aged 65 and older — 52 percent in this demographic said they support Biden, 27 percent support Trump and 9 percent support Kennedy.
Trump maintains approximately a 10–12-point lead over Biden with younger voters, per the poll.
Among undeclared voters in the state, support is roughly split between the three candidates, with Biden maintaining a narrow lead with 27.5 percent, followed by Trump’s 24.2 percent, Kennedy’s 23.2 percent and 25.1 percent who said they support “none of these” candidates.
Praecones Analytica’s Jonathan Klingler attributed these results to the incumbent’s poor showing among swing voters. Biden won the state in 2020 by 8 points.
“While registered voters of both parties are largely united around their nominee, independent/undeclared voters are splitting their support in four statistically indistinguishable ways: between Biden, Trump, Kennedy, and other unnamed candidates,” Klingler told the NHJournal.
“In comparison to exit polls from the 2020 presidential election, independent/undeclared voters in New Hampshire demonstrate significantly lower support for Biden, as Biden won around 60 percent of these voters in 2020, compared to around a quarter if the election were held today,” he added.
The results come as Biden is slated to travel to New Hampshire this week to campaign.
“This helps to put President Biden’s visit this week into greater context, as that sound you hear is the 2024 battleground map expanding for Donald Trump, seemingly putting New Hampshire in play this fall,” veteran New Hampshire GOP strategist Jim Merrill told the NHJournal.
The poll, conducted between May 15-20, included 862 registered New Hampshire voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.33 percentage points.
