Ted Cruz is either tied with Trump or surging according to three new state polls out today of South Carolina, Florida, and New Hampshire:

POLITICO – The crowded GOP field is harming Marco Rubio and helping Donald Trump, according to three new polls of likely Republican voters taken in New Hampshire, South Carolina and in Florida that also show Ted Cruz surging. For the first time, Cruz ties Trump in South Carolina, and he’s also tied for second with Rubio in the Florida senator’s home state, according to a memo on the three surveys, which were conducted after last week’s debate. The polls were commissioned by Associated Industries of Florida, a pro-business lobby that tracks the race for its largely Republican membership.

Here are the polls:







This is big news for Ted Cruz because it now shows he’s now much more competitive in the battleground states of Florida and New Hampshire and tied for first place in South Carolina. But more importantly, he’s on a momentum swing upward, just over a month before the first primaries begin!

Also, just out this morning was a new Qunnipiac national poll that shows Ted Cruz surging as well, who is now only FOUR points behind Trump! That would certainly match his surging in these new state polls and seem to validate these results.

Now it’s important to note that two of the state poll results conflict with two CBS News battleground tracker polls that were released over the weekend that show Trump with a more sizeable lead in both South Carolina and New Hampshire. But I’d like to point out the margin of error in those polls was almost 7%.

Here’s the lowdown on the three polls:

The Florida poll of 800 likely Republican voters has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points and was conducted for AIF by the Florida firm of Data Targeting. The New Hampshire survey (500 respondents with an error margin of 4.4 percentage points) and South Carolina poll (600 respondents; 3.9 margin of error) were conducted by Tel Opinion Research, which is based in Alexandria, Virginia. The polls, conducted Dec. 17-18, surveyed respondents culled from a voter list who had a history of higher-propensity voting in GOP presidential primary and other races. Respondents were asked an open-ended question concerning whom they supported. The poll did not read a list of names of candidates from which voters picked a choice.

If you want, read more on these polls here.