Dem
51
GOP
49
Speaking of Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, how is that going? Or rather, "How the (once) mighty have fallen." According to the conventional wisdom, DeSantis was going to be the alternative to Donald Trump—and he was for a couple of months. Now his campaign has collapsed. He was still in second place, but now even that is in danger after Haley turned in good performances in the first two debates. A new Suffolk University poll of New Hampshire now has Haley in second place. Donald Trump is at 49%, Haley is at 19%, DeSantis is at 10%, Chris Christie is at 6%, and no one else is even at 5%. 48% of likely Republican voters in the Granite State think Trump is inevitable but 44% think someone else could win the nomination. For New Hampshire Republicans, only two issues matter: immigration and crime. That's it. For example, 58% want to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. In contrast, only 16% of the voters see climate change as very serious.
DeSantis is surely aware that he is slipping in Iowa and New Hampshire, so yesterday he campaigned in South Carolina for the first time in 3 months. If he is wiped out in Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina may be too late to save him, but if he does tolerably well—say, comes in a strong second in both—then South Carolina could be important. However, he has a huge built-in disadvantage in South Carolina that he can't fix: Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) are the favorite daughter and favorite son, respectively. It is very unlikely that DeSantis can come in higher than third, which won't help much with a flagging campaign. For him, Iowa is really do-or-die.
DeSantis can't spend too much time in South Carolina or Nevada because voters in Iowa and New Hampshire won't tolerate that. They expect candidates to spend all their time in the two states. If a candidate loses both of those states, recovery is tough except in special circumstances. Joe Biden pulled it off because the demographic composition of the Democratic electorate is so different in Iowa and New Hampshire (nearly all white) from South Carolina (about 60% Black). That doesn't hold for the Republican electorate. (V)