Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has focused his presidential campaign on Iowa, the site of the GOP’s first caucus.
DeSantis has spent far less time in New Hampshire, the site of the GOP’s first primary — and the polling shows.
A new poll released Monday shows that DeSantis has dropped to third in the Granite State.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has taken the second-place position.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, pollsters at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire surveyed 931 likely voters in New Hampshire’s GOP primary. They drew cell numbers randomly collected from a representative sample of registered voters, and they estimated the margin of error at 3.2 percent.
The respondents answered randomly ordered questions about their preferred candidate and their opinions of the other candidates.
In this poll, only 11 percent of respondents would vote for DeSantis in a primary election held today.
DeSantis has sunk 18 points since March, and he’s plunged to a distant third, only one point ahead of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Haley is winning a small but important demographic: Republican voters with an unfavorable opinion of former President Donald Trump.
Among the anti-Trump Republicans, Haley is even polling ahead of Christie, the candidate known for his harsh critiques of Trump.
Haley also boasts the second-highest favorability rating of any candidate. With +37% favorability, Haley ranked behind only South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (+51% favorability), and she even outperformed Trump (+32% favorability). Meanwhile, DeSantis is sitting at +28% favorability, and Christie finds himself underwater at -46% favorability.
Of course, Trump is still finishing first with a massive 45% of the vote. He’s beating Haley by a margin of three to one. Plus, the poll suffers from a small sample size, and voters may change their attitudes after the Iowa caucus.
Still, Haley moved to second place after the GOP’s first debate next month… and she’s set to appear at the second debate on Wednesday.
The Horn editorial team