Iowa Poll: Nearly Half of Nikki Haley Voters Prefer Biden Over Trump

Heading into Monday’s Iowa caucuses, a near-majority of likely votes for former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who has been rising in the polls since December, are coming from voters who would prefer Joe Biden over Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2020 rematch.

That’s according to the latest NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa voters, released Saturday night. Unsurprisingly, a super-majority of Iowa GOP caucusgoers said they’d support Trump against Biden. But for 43 percent of Haley voters, Biden was the preferred choice. Only 23 percent said they’d break for Trump, while 27 percent said they’d vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or another third-party candidate. The rest were either unsure of their choice or said they wouldn’t vote.

The results demonstrate Haley’s inroads among independent and moderate voters during this primary campaign season. “Haley is consolidating the anti-Trump vote,” pollster J. Ann Selzer, who is in her third decade of conducting this Iowa primary poll, told NBC. “She does well with the people who define themselves as anti-Trump.” On Monday, those voters will include some anti-Trump Iowa independents and Democrats, who are planning on registering to caucus as Republicans to vote for Haley, Axios reported Sunday.

While Haley still trails Trump significantly in Iowa, her campaign hopes that an expectation-exceeding performance will boost her chances in New Hampshire, where the electorate has a considerably higher share of independents. Chris Sununu, the state’s moderate Republican governor, has endorsed Haley and campaigned for her across the state in recent weeks. A poll published last week had Haley down 14 points to Trump in the Granite State.

Haley received another boost to her anti-Trump bona fides Sunday with an endorsement from Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who argued that “the momentum” is with the former South Carolina governor.

Last week, Hogan stepped down from No Labels, a centrist political organization, spurring speculation that he was mulling an independent presidential bid. His endorsement of Haley Sunday appeared to pour cold water on that possibility. “She’s 17 points ahead of Joe Biden, and it is a tossup with Trump and Biden,” Hogan said in a CNN appearance. “Yes, it is time for the party to get behind Nikki Haley.”

Sunday’s poll also shows Haley overtaking Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, with Haley garnering 20 percent of the likely Iowa vote to DeSantis’ 16 percent. Trump, who has maintained a double-digit lead for the entirety of the campaign season, notched nearly 50 percent of the total tally.

The result is especially dire news for the DeSantis campaign, which has poured resources into the Hawkeye State, hoping to peel off evangelical voters and pull off a solid performance against Trump. The campaign was also hoping that an endorsement from the state’s popular conservative governor, Kim Reynolds, would boost its prospects. According to Sunday’s poll, 64 percent of DeSantis voters indicated they’d vote for Trump if he is the nominee.

Yet the encouraging topline polling numbers for Haley this week may be less robust than they appear. Caucusgoers were also asked about their enthusiasm for their preferred candidates, and Haley supporters indicated they were much less excited about going to the polls than those who will likely vote for Trump. Haley’s favorability numbers have also declined in Iowa over the past month. Speaking to the Des Moines Register, Seltzer said, “The deep data on [Haley] suggest she looks stronger in the poll than she could on caucus night.”