Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s support in the Republican presidential primary slipped to its lowest level this year, according to a new Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday.
Eighteen percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters said they supported the Florida governor, which is his lowest level of support in Quinnipiac’s polling of the GOP primary this year. Former President Trump, on the other hand, clocked in at a whopping 57 percent support among Republican and Republican-leaning voters. Quinnipiac noted that DeSantis was only 6 points behind the former president in February, but now he finds himself trailing Trump by 39 points.
Meanwhile, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy came in third place at 5 percent support, followed by former Vice President Mike Pence at 4 percent. Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie each received 3 percent support.
The poll comes as DeSantis continues to struggle to gain traction in the polls. An Emerson College survey released earlier this week showed Christie surpassing DeSantis by 1 point in New Hampshire. Christie’s 1-point lead over DeSantis falls within the poll’s plus-or-minus 3.4 percent margin of error.
DeSantis’s campaign has been in the midst of a reset, which has involved two rounds of layoffs and a campaign manager swap over the summer. However, his allies point to next week’s first Republican primary debate, which they say will be the real start of the GOP primary and the first major test for the candidates.
The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted Aug. 10-14 among 681 Republican and Republican-leaning voters with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.8 percentage points.