The final Monmouth University Poll (Feb. 7, 2016) in New Hampshire found Donald Trump with a sizable lead over his competition in the Republican race, while Bernie Sanders held a ten point lead over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic contest.
The big question on the GOP side is who will come in second place, with at least four candidates realistically vying for the spot. On the Democratic side, the question is whether Clinton can reduce her deficit to the single digits.
In the retail-heavy political environment of New Hampshire, it may all come down to the ground game – how many voters can each campaign personally contact. Monmouth asked its poll respondents whether they had been contacted, and if so, on behalf of whom.
Interestingly, since registered independents can – and do – vote in either party’s primary, a significant number of likely voters in each contest say they were contacted by both Republican and Democratic campaigns. The numbers below give a relative sense of how intense that outreach has been – and which candidates are excelling in their field operations.
Candidates are listed in rank order of total voter contacts, assuming about the same number of voters will turn out in each party’s primary. The first number in parenthesis is the percentage of likely Republican voters who report being contacted by someone promoting that candidate. The second number is the percentage of likely Democratic voters who say the same.
New Hampshire Voter Contacts
1. Hillary Clinton (13 / 39)
2. Bernie Sanders (13 / 35)
3. Jeb Bush (31 / 8)
4. John Kasich (26 / 8)
5. Ted Cruz (22 / 10)
6. Marco Rubio (22 / 8)
7. Donald Trump (19 / 9)
8. Chris Christie (17 / 7)
9. Carly Fiorina (16 / 4)
10. Ben Carson (11 / 5)
11. Rand Paul (10 / 5)
12. Martin O’Malley (0 / 6)