(PresidentialWire.com)- Last week, a University of New Hampshire/Granite State poll found that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is polling ahead of former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical primary match-up in New Hampshire, and Trump was not at all pleased about it.
According to the survey, New Hampshire Republicans preferred DeSantis over Trump, 39 percent to 37 percent.
The poll also presented a hypothetical general election match-up against Joe Biden in 2024. And while Biden easily bested Trump by 7 points among New Hampshire voters, 50 percent to 43 percent, DeSantis topped Biden by one point, 47 percent to Biden’s 46 percent.
Needless to say, the New Hampshire poll sparked an avalanche of headlines crowing about how DeSantis topped Trump. And those crowing headlines appear to have gotten under the former president’s skin.
Last Wednesday, Trump sent out one of his mass emails promoting a Zogby national poll that showed Ron DeSantis leading Mike Pence by only 4 points, 27 percent to 23 percent, in a hypothetical Republican primary without Trump on the ballot.
The national poll, released last week, also found that with Trump on the ballot, respondents overwhelmingly chose Trump by 53.9 percent with DeSantis a distant second with only 11.5 percent.
Admittedly, the Zogby poll has a tiny sample size of only 408 likely Republican voters nationwide and has a large margin of error of almost 5 points.
In the context of other national polls, the Zogby poll is a bit of an outlier. While Trump does top the list of hypothetical primary candidates on the national level, the margin between him and DeSantis is typically less than 30 points.
But none of that negates what the New Hampshire poll reveals. The early primary Granite State shifting toward DeSantis and away from Trump is significant, especially considering that New Hampshire University’s October 2021 poll had Trump beating DeSantis 43 percent to 18 percent.
It also found that DeSantis has a double-digit advantage over Trump when it comes to net favorability among New Hampshire Republicans, 66 percent to 46 percent.
