Poll: Carson closing on Trump

Ben Carson is 5 points shy of a tie with Donald Trump in the race for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination, a new poll says.

Carson is catching up with the outspoken billionaire following rising support from white, evangelical Republican voters, according to the NBC News/Survey Monkey survey released on Friday.

{mosads}Trump gets 28 percent from Republican and Republican-leaning independents in the poll, compared to 23 percent from Carson, who had just 14 percent a month ago. Trump is down 1 percent.

Carson and Trump are the only Republican White House hopefuls currently receiving double-digit voter support nationwide.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is the pair’s nearest competition, taking third place with 9 percent.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) then tie at 6 percent apiece.

After that, former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) scores 5 percent, the last GOP presidential candidate at or above that number.

Carson is nearing Trump’s place atop the polls because of his growing support among white, evangelical Republican voters.

He currently has 33 percent among that demographic, up from 20 percent in a similar sampling last month.

Trump, in contrast, is at 23 percent among that voting bloc after getting 25 percent in September.

Carson, a Seventh Day Adventist, has repeatedly emphasized the important of his faith since launching his Oval Office bid earlier this year.

NBC News and Survey Monkey conducted its latest sampling from Tuesday to Thursday among 4,898 adults age 18 and over. It has a 2 percent margin of error.