With the Iowa and New Hampshire Republican caucuses now just weeks away, recent polls show political neophyte Donald Trump firmly leading in one of those states and locked in a dead-heat with Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the other.

New Hampshire Poll

According to CNN Poll of Polls averages, Trump laps the field in New Hampshire with 26 percent of the vote, compared to Florida Senator Marco Rubio at 12 percent. Cruz and Ben Carson trail at 9 percent each, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 8 percent and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at 7 percent.

Iowa Poll

In Iowa, Cruz bags 27 percent of the vote to Trump's 25 percent, with Rubio and Carson at 13 and 12 percent respectively. As for the overall race for the 2016 Republican nomination, Trump tops Cruz 33 to 17 percent, with Rubio at 12 percent and Carson at 11 percent.

The CNN Poll of Polls is touted as a composite snapshot of several, recent national, live-telephone interview polls.

Trump 's national poll lead varies from 27 points in the most recent poll from Monmouth University to just five points in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey conducted before Christmas.

In Iowa specifically, three of the six polls included in the CNN results found Cruz with a significant lead over Trump, two found the two within margin of error of one another, and one found Trump ahead by a wide margin. The CNN/ORC poll which found Trump ahead is the oldest in the bunch, with interviews conducted between November 28 and December 6.

Meanwhile, support for Carson appears to be dwindling by the day in the Granite City, with the once surging candidate now having seen his numbers drop from a pre-Thanksgiving high of 11 percent to just over half of that in more recent polling.

Bush, Rubio and Cruz have all managed to remain steady in the state.