Republican front-runner Donald Trump holds a 10 point lead in New Hampshire over his 2016 GOP presidential rivals, but Florida Senator Marco Rubio appears to be picking up steam.

The Boston Globe reports a new Suffolk University poll finds Trump at 29 percent and Rubio now all the way up to second place with 19 percent of the vote. Those numbers reflect the highest level of support Rubio has mustered in any public survey since the outspoken Trump announced his candidacy back in the summer.

Ohio Governor John Kasich now polls third in the state from among the crowded GOP field at 13 percent, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 10 percent. Texas Senator and Iowa caucus winner Ted Cruz currently lands fifth in New Hampshire at 7 percent, followed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 5 and 4 percent, respectively.

"What a difference a caucus makes," said David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk University. "By exceeding expectations in Iowa, Marco Rubio is converting likability to electability, even more so than Ted Cruz, who, like many conservative Iowa winners of the past like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, can't seem to convert an Iowa win into a major showing in New Hampshire."

Rubio's rise appears largely fueled based on his popularity with females, with one in four New Hampshire women now expressing support for him, the highest percentage of any GOP candidate in the field.

On the democratic side, the same poll finds former secretary of state Hillary Clinton now within striking distance of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who now holds a 50-41 percent lead, with 8 percent of voters insisting they remain undecided.

The liberal-minded Sanders still holds a sizable lead over his primary challenger among independents, with 57 percent of those voters pledging allegiance to him compared to 30 percent for Clinton.

Related