Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t campaigning heavily in New Hampshire. He’s spending no money on ads going forward. And after Friday’s visit to the state, he is heading back to South Carolina, which holds its Primary on Feb. 24.
New polling suggests the Governor’s neglect of the Granite State could come back to hurt him in the event he earns the Republican presidential nomination, meanwhile.
In a survey released Friday by Marist, DeSantis is 9 points behind President Joe Biden, with just 42% support against 51% for the incumbent.
He does markedly worse against Biden than does Nikki Haley, who leads the President 52% to 45%, and Donald Trump, who trails Biden 52% to 45%.
Biden would take 95% of Democrats in this hypothetical contest, while only 82% of Republicans say they would vote DeSantis at this point, with 9% leaning Biden and 19% undecided.
His best performance is with evangelical Christians, of whom 71% say they back DeSantis, with 21% preferring the President.
DeSantis does lead with respondents who don’t have college degrees, with 51% support. That support climbs to 58% with men who haven’t graduated college.
Interestingly, DeSantis has a marginal lead, 48% to 47%, over Biden with voters under the age of 45. That’s a rare demographic win for the Governor in this survey.
Even though polling of Tuesday’s Primary suggests DeSantis will finish in single digits, that doesn’t mean Republicans and GOP-leaning independents in the state don’t approve of him. He’s at 53% favorability with that group, against 26% disapproval.
He does better still on the question of whether or not respondents would be “satisfied” with him as the nominee, with 66% of Republicans and 51% of GOP-leaning independents finding him acceptable.
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