Sununu: ‘Polls, schmolls,’ Nikki Haley is ‘surging’

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) doubled down on his belief Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley can win South Carolina’s primary next month and argued the White House hopeful is “surging.”

“Nikki can win South Carolina,” Sununu said in an interview on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” on Monday. “I mean, the fact that she went from what … single digits in Iowa — 20 percent there. Forty-five percent or so here in New Hampshire. Just skyrocketed everyone out of the race.”

“She’s the one that’s surging, wind at our backs, and the South Carolina primary isn’t for a couple more weeks and she’s won there before. She knows how to do it,” Sununu continued. “She can talk about successes there that Trump can’t talk about.”

NewsNation anchor Elizabeth Prann interrupted Sununu to point out recent polling that shows the former South Carolina governor matches up “really well” against President Biden but does not match up well against former President Trump, who continues to hold a wide lead over his last significant GOP challenger.

According to a polling index by The Hill/Decision Desk HQ, Haley, a former United Nations ambassador, trails Trump in the South Carolina primary race by about 31.3 points. Trump’s lead is higher in national polling, securing about 70.7 percent of the likely GOP primary vote compared to Haley, who has about 13.9 percent of the vote, per The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling index.