DeSantis ‘on life support’ in N.H., plummets in new poll

Ron DeSantis is in freefall in New Hampshire.

The Florida GOP governor, who once polled ahead of former President Donald Trump in the first primary state, has now fallen solidly back into the pack, competing in a crowded race with biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for second place in a new survey.

Support for DeSantis cratered to 10 percent in the CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released Wednesday, his worst showing in a public poll of Granite Staters yet, according to the list compiled by polling aggregator Real Clear Politics. He’s down 32 points from the January UNH survey in which he led Trump 42 percent to 30 percent. He now sits 29 points behind the former president.

“The campaign for Ron DeSantis is on life support,” veteran New Hampshire GOP strategist Mike Dennehy said in response to the poll. “He has one shot at resuscitation and that is the debate next week.”

DeSantis finished fifth in the survey, behind Ramaswamy at 13 percent, Haley at 12 percent and Christie at 11 percent. But because of the poll’s margin of error, the candidates are statistically in a four-way tie for second.

The Florida governor’s sagging poll numbers in New Hampshire come as he hasn’t set foot in the first primary state in a month. As he campaigns in Iowa and fundraises in Texas, he’s been leaving his surrogates and supporters in New Hampshire to pick up his slack.

“He needs to get his ass up to New Hampshire,” said one DeSantis endorser in New Hampshire, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation. “This is absolutely ridiculous that he’s not here.”

The bad news for DeSantis isn’t confined to New Hampshire. It’s everywhere. He finished third behind Haley in a new Fox Business poll of her home state of South Carolina. And in another poll released on Wednesday, a Fox Business survey of Iowa caucus-goers, he’s barely ahead of the former U.N. ambassador. Trump is crushing them both, with 46 percent support in each poll.

But his absence from New Hampshire has been especially baffling to supporters and political observers in the state. DeSantis’ next scheduled event in New Hampshire is a mid-October cattle call hosted by the state Republican Party. His campaign said he is planning a broader campaign swing through the state to coincide with the New Hampshire GOP’s “leadership summit.”

“Ron DeSantis has maintained the most aggressive campaign schedule of anyone in the field and we are excited to be returning to New Hampshire soon,” DeSantis campaign spokesperson Andrew Romeo said.

While DeSantis enjoyed high interest among Republican activists before he entered the presidential race, he has since struggled to sell his brand of culture-war conservatism to the broader electorate in New Hampshire, a libertarian-leaning state where independents, who skew more moderate, make up the largest share of voters and are poised to play a major role in next year’s open primary.

The Florida governor stumbled out of the gate in New Hampshire, getting dragged into a tit-for-tat endorsement battle with Trump, declining to take questions from voters — town halls are a campaign-trail staple in the Granite State — and angering a prominent Republican women’s group by counterprogramming a major fundraiser of theirs where Trump was the featured speaker.

DeSantis turned some heads back in his direction with his summer reboot, during which he showed Granite Staters a candidate more willing to take questions and tangle with Trump. But then he stepped off the trail when Hurricane Idalia hit his home state, and hasn’t been back to New Hampshire since.

With neither DeSantis nor Trump around, once-lower-polling candidates — Ramaswamy, Haley, Christie and Scott — have had the state to themselves. Ramaswamy and Haley in particular have worked to capitalize on growing interest in both of their campaigns after the first debate. And it’s starting to pay off for them: While the CNN/UNH poll of 845 likely GOP primary voters conducted Sept. 14 to 18 was among DeSantis’ worst showings yet in public polls of the Granite State, it was Haley’s best, according to RCP. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

DeSantis’ campaigning in New Hampshire “has been spotty at best,” said Matthew Bartlett, a New Hampshire native and GOP strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns and is unaffiliated in this one. “There has not been enough emphasis on holding town hall events, several a day, day after day, where you kick the doors open to the public, clearly and effectively define your vision for the country and then take every question under the sun.”

Sally Goldenberg contributed to this report.