Almost half of Republican voters prefer an outsider, either Donald Trump or Ben Carson, as their nominee for president.
WASHINGTON -- Nearly half of Republican voters want either businessman Donald Trump or retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to be their nominee, according to a poll released Tuesday that boosts Gov. Chris Christie's hope of sitting on the main stage at next week's GOP debate.
A CNN/ORC International poll gave Trump 27 percent and Carson 22 percent. None of the other Republican presidential hopefuls polled higher than 8 percent.
With 4 percent, Christie exceeded the 3 percent threshold for CNBC's main debate scheduled for Oct. 28 at the University of Colorado in Boulder. CNBC said it would take the average of national polls released from Sept. 17 to Oct. 21 by the four national television networks, CNN and Bloomberg.
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Christie was at 1 percent in both an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Monday and a Fox News poll released last week. CNBC said it would round up the averages so that candidates averaging 2.5 percent would still sit on the main stage.
In the CNN poll, Christie was tied for seventh place with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina.
Both Trump and Carson received 26 percent support from those who described themselves as conservative. Christie was at 5 percent. Those describing themselves as Tea Party supporters preferred Trump over Carson, 35 percent to 28 percent. Christie was at 3 percent.
Trump led the GOP field with 24 percent in the CNN poll taken Sept. 17-19 after the second presidential debate. Carson was in third place at 14 percent and Christie at 3 percent. Fiorina rode a strong debate performance to second place and 15 percent in that survey.
The poll of 465 registered Republicans or independents who leaned Republican was taken Oct. 14-17 and had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.