Trump tops Haley by 31 points in new survey of South Carolina Republicans

Former President Trump leads fellow GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley by a comfortable 31-point margin in the early-voting state of South Carolina, where Haley was once governor, according to a poll released Tuesday. 

The CNN poll found found Trump in the lead in the Republican field with 53 percent support, followed by Haley with 22 percent.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in third with 11 percent, while home-state Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) was next with 6 percent. 

Every other candidate received no more than 2 percent. 

The results exhibit Trump’s dominance in the GOP primary even in Haley’s own state, though they also show the former governor in a strong spot compared to the rest of the field.

Haley, who has also served as ambassador to the United Nations, has seen a rise in polling in the past couple months, and is more directly competing with DeSantis for second place behind Trump. She tied with DeSantis for second in an Iowa poll released Monday. 

She also came in second place in South Carolina in a Monmouth University-Washington Post poll released last month, though she trailed Trump by 28 points. 

The CNN poll found Haley also seems to have potential room to grow her support in the state; almost 20 percent said they would consider Haley to be their second choice for the nomination, a number only surpassed by the 24 percent who said the same of DeSantis.

Scott also had almost 20 percent list him as their second choice, while Trump had 13 percent. 

More than 60 percent said they will definitely support the candidate they currently back, while almost 40 percent said they might change their mind. 

Half of the respondents said they are not currently supporting Haley but are open to considering it. Two-thirds said the same about Scott, and 57 percent said the same about DeSantis. 

More than half of all respondents said they would not support former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy under any circumstances. 

South Carolina will be one of the first states to vote in the Republican nominating process, after Iowa and New Hampshire, and could be key to Haley or another challenger making a deep run in the GOP primaries. 

The poll was conducted among 738 likely Republican primary voters from Oct. 18-25. The margin of error was 4.8 points.