Poll: Paul trails Bush and Walker in New Hampshire

WASHINGTON - Despite numerous trips to the first-in-the-nation primary state, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is trailing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in New Hampshire, according to a new Suffolk University Poll.

Paul has just 7 percent support among likely voters in the Granite State's presidential primary, the survey finds.

Bush has 19 percent support while Walker has 14 percent. Real estate mogul Donald Trump is at 6 percent, while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are tied at 5 percent each. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson each have 3 percent.

A quarter of those surveyed were undecided.

"The single-digit candidates need to go to New Hampshire and make a personal appeal to likely Republican voters there if they want to become the Republican alternative to Jeb Bush," David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston, said in a statement.

"There are still plenty of undecided voters who might be won over if they make their case," he said.

Paul is expected to announce his candidacy for president on April 7 in Louisville, then fly to New Hampshire for a day of events the following day. Subsequent days will be filled with visits to Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada.

The Kentucky lawmaker has made multiple trips to New Hampshire since the start of 2013 and has hired staff there in anticipation of his campaign. He was just in the state on March 20 and 21.

Paul also has been traveling from coast-to-coast for what he has said was a test of whether his message of a smaller, less intrusive government and a more inclusive Republican Party was resonating with voters.

Paul's father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, came in second in the 2012 GOP presidential primary, getting 23 percent of the vote to winner Mitt Romney's 39 percent.

With the GOP field for 2016 not yet set and balloting not until next year, any poll results have to be taken with a grain of salt. But they indicate where Republican voters are leaning at a point in time.