Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) is experiencing a post-debate boost, three new surveys find, with two New Hampshire polls and a national poll this week all showing him rising to third place.
A WBUR poll conducted by MassINC of likely Republican voters in New Hampshire shows Rubio with 11 percent of the vote, up 9 percentage points since a September WBUR poll. Rubio received a greater boost than any other candidate tested in the survey.
Rubio's favorable rating is also up by 10 points, reaching 56 percent and making him the second-most favorably rated candidate in the field, just after former neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) made modest gains in the poll as well, jumping 6 points to 8 percent and reaching fifth place in the poll, just behind Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who received 10 percent. Christie's favorable rating also went up to 51 percent, a 12-point rise in two months.
Real estate mogul Donald Trump continues to hold on to the first place position with 18 percent, a 4-point drop since September. Carson follows closely behind in second place with 16 percent, falling 2 points since the last poll.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) is down 2 points in the poll, falling to the middle of the pack with 7 percent. His favorable rating also took a hit, falling 5 points, while his unfavorable rating went up 8 points.
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who experienced an impressive bump in the polls after the second Republican debate, has been unable to maintain her momentum. She has fallen by 5 points, reaching 6 percent in this poll, leaving her in a tie with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). All other candidates in the poll received 3 percent or less.
A Monmouth University New Hampshire poll released Monday also shows Rubio taking the third place spot in the race with 13 percent of the vote. His share of the vote has tripled since a September Monmouth poll. And while the poll shows Carson with the highest favorable rating at 64 percent, Rubio is now following closely behind with 62 percent.
HuffPost Pollster's estimate of the New Hampshire primary, which aggregates all available polls, shows Trump in the lead with 26 percent of the vote and Carson in second with 15 percent. And while these recent polls show a boost for Rubio, his overall ranking in the model has not experienced much upward movement as of yet.
On the national stage, a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday also shows Rubio jumping to third place, with 14 percent. His favorable rating also holds strong in the poll at 71 percent.
And while Cruz has failed to climb significantly in both New Hampshire polls this week (WBUR and Monmouth both show him up just 1 point from September), he has shown improvement nationally, climbing 6 points to reach fourth place in the Quinnipiac poll with 13 percent.
While these surveys signify good news for Rubio, polls produced this far ahead of the primary election are poor indicators of the eventual outcome. A CBS/New York Times poll released last week finds that 7 in 10 Republican voters have still not firmly decided on the candidate that they're currently backing.
Similarly, the latest Monmouth University poll finds that only 1 in 5 New Hampshire Republican likely primary voters are completely decided on a candidate.
WBUR surveyed 400 likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire on Oct. 29 through Nov. 1. Monmouth University surveyed 410 registered New Hampshire voters on Oct. 29 through Nov. 1. Quinnipiac University surveyed 502 registered voters nationwide who identify as Republican or lean Republican on Oct. 29 through Nov. 2. All three polls conducted live interviews to landlines and cell phones.
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