Nikki Haley is leading President Biden by 13 points in a new poll of a hypothetical head-to-head match-up, giving her additional ammunition to argue that she’d be a stronger general election candidate than former President Trump, the front-runner in the GOP primary.
The CNN poll, conducted by SSRS, found 52 percent of registered voters saying they would lean more toward voting for Haley if the choice for president was between her and Biden, while 39 percent of registered voters said they would be more likely to vote for Biden.
Haley has a 2 percent lead over Biden in a national polling average by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ.
Haley is well behind Trump in the battle for the GOP nomination, after losing to the former president in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
She trails Trump by nearly 31 percent in the The Hill/Decision Desk HQ average of polls for South Carolina, which holds its primary later this month.
Haley’s lead does not mean she is viewed well by voters, however. Only 28 percent of registered voters said they had a favorable opinion of Haley, compared to 38 percent for Trump.
Among Republican and Republican-leaning independents who are registered to vote, Haley trails the former president by 51 points when it comes to who they want to “see win the Republican nomination for president in 2024.” Seventy percent of the group said they want to see Trump win the nomination, versus 19 percent who said they want Haley to win.
The poll also found 49 percent of registered voters said they would be “more likely to vote” for Trump, while 45 percent said they would be “more likely to vote” for Biden.
In the same poll, 38 percent of respondents said they approve of “the way” Biden is “handling his job,” while 62 percent said they disapprove. Thirty-four percent also said the president “deserves to be” reelected, while 66 percent disagree.
The CNN/SSRS poll was conducted Jan. 25-30 with 1,212 respondents and a margin of sampling error of 3.4 percentage points.
There were 983 respondents labeled as registered voters in the poll, with a sampling error of 3.8 percentage points.
There were also 442 respondents labeled as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents who are registered to vote, with a sampling error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points.
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