A Saint Anselm College poll of likely voters in New Hampshire's Republican presidential primary shows Trump, unsurprisingly, in the lead, with 45% of the vote. Perhaps surprising (perhaps not) is that Nikki Haley has overshadowed Ron DeSantis; she rings in with 15%, while the Florida governor stands at only 11% — all of one point ahead of the widely Republican-detested Chris Christie.
DeSantis has dropped nearly 20 points since March. The more he campaigns, the farther behind he becomes — a whole new approach to retail politics.
Furthermore, only 11% or 12% of voters with a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Trump — take your pick — choose DeSantis, "suggesting that he doesn’t appeal to either group strongly enough to have maintained his early status as Trump’s strongest challenger," write the pollsters.
The other significant finding abut Haley is that "she has room to grow her support," since she is generally liked. "She carries a 37-point net positive favorability (65%-28%), second only to South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (+51%)." Scott is liked but dull as hell.
The survey's overall good news for Trump is that the field is fractured, thus preventing any one candidate to reap the total anti-Trump vote. The overall bad news for Trump is also that the field is fractured.
Observes the executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Neil Levesque: "A fractured field means the eventual Republican nominee will have to work to consolidate their support against President Joe Biden." Only three-fourths of those surveyed said they would vote for Trump against Biden.
Adds Levesque: "This reflects a deep polarization in the primary electorate between supporters and detractors of Trump." And the polarization is likely to exacerbate as Trump perp walks from courtroom to courtroom and continues blathering about wanting to execute a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Even in GOP bizarro world, there are limits.