The good news from the University of New Hampshire poll of Granite State Republican Primary voters is that Ron DeSantis doesn’t have much further to fall ahead of the open contest Jan. 23.
The bad news is that he’s at 5%, behind Donald Trump (39%), Nikki Haley (32%), Chris Christie (12%) and Vivek Ramaswamy (8%). And given that only 40% of DeSantis’ supporters say they are “definitely decided,” the data suggests his hard support is around 2%.
The polling memo describes DeSantis’ support as having “plummeted.” Given that he was at 43% earlier this year and has therefore lost nearly 90% of his previous backing, that’s a fair assessment.
DeSantis is still the top second choice, with 17% of respondents seeing him as a fallback.
Yet he’s underwater in terms of favorable numbers, with 29% approval against 41% disapproval. He’s lost 67 points in net, going from a +55 in January to the current -12.
To put DeSantis’ decline in perspective, he’s doing worse in this Primary than no-hope candidates Dean Phillips (7%) and Marianne Williamson (6%) are on the Democratic side.
This is the second poll this month to show DeSantis at 5%. An American Research Group poll in the field between Dec. 27 and Jan. 3 shows the Florida Governor with just 2% support among men, but with 5% support among the whole electorate.
Other polls corroborate these findings.
A survey from the St. Anselm College Survey Center found DeSantis at 6%, with the pollster claiming his support has “all but disappeared.”
December’s UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion showed DeSantis at 10%, actually in third place ahead of Christie. However, just 27% of his supporters said they are definitely voting for him, which means he could bottom out below 3% if things go really badly.
DeSantis will have a week after the Jan. 15 Iowa caucus to do the seemingly impossible. He told Hawkeye State reporters on Monday “we’ll be flying out of Iowa that night to go to New Hampshire and we’ll be in New Hampshire all the way through the New Hampshire Primary.”
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