DOVER, New Hampshire — For months, it had been clear that traversing the primary politics of the mountainous Granite State was going to be a steep climb for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Despite drawing sizeable crowds right up until the very end of his campaign — which the 45-year-old announced Sunday afternoon — DeSantis had been on a downward trajectory as anti-Trump voters coalesced around former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Trump-sympathetic voters backed the man himself.
“DeSantis gave up on New Hampshire and put all his eggs in one basket — Iowa,” Kim Rice, a Haley backer and former Speaker pro tempore of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, told The Post before DeSantis dropped out.
“And I just think his message clearly wasn’t resonating with the people of New Hampshire.”
DeSantis started out hot. In April of last year, he swung through the Granite State as a star, coming off a landslide re-election victory in the formerly purple Sunshine State. His appearance at the Amos Tuck Dinner, the largest annual GOP fundraiser in the state, raked in record donations and drew a sold-out crowd.
While Trump, 77, still led in the polls, DeSantis was not that far behind. A glimpse at the RealClearPolitics aggregate from that period shows the Floridian 14 points adrift of Trump — closer than Haley is now as voters prepare to go to the polls in the first-in-the-nation primary.
Unfortunately, that was the high-water mark for DeSantis. Beginning this past spring, the first of four indictments of the former president created a rally-round-the-flag effect as outraged Republicans flocked to support who they saw as their party’s railroaded leader.
By the time DeSantis launched his campaign in May of last year, Trump’s lead in the New Hampshire RCP average had grown to 18 points. DeSantis would never get as close again.
In both sports and politics, the tendency when a heavily hyped team falls short of its goal is to focus on its deficiencies and mistakes.
But sometimes, the other team is simply too strong.
Trump’s already-formidable candidacy has been buoyed by the fact that many Republican voters consider him their president, no matter who is currently occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
In both Iowa and New Hampshire, many Trump voters who spoke to The Post made clear they never really considered any alternatives to the 45th president.
“At the beginning,” Dennis Malboeuf, 58, told The Post at Trump campaign headquarters in Manchester when asked if he’d thought about another option.
“DeSantis — I mean the way he ran his state, that was great,” added Malboeuf, who ultimately concluded that Trump had the better track record at a higher level of government.
“Things get done” under Trump, he said.
DeSantis’ message to Republican voters was simple: He would champion Trump’s policies without the drama and chaos, while also bringing far more competence to the White House.
This pitch may have been the only way for DeSantis to grow his support, but it backfired in two respects: It failed to peel off enough Trump backers, and turned off the smaller pool of potential anti-Trump voters.
“I don’t trust DeSantis because he’s one of Trump’s cronies,” said Haley backer and unaffiliated voter Leon Mercier, 70, of Swanzey. “He was too close to him. We don’t want another January 6.”
Despite Haley’s own tenure as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mercier felt she had attained sufficient distance from him since leaving office in 2018.
Lizabeth McLaughlin of Marlborough, a onetime supporter of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said she rejected Trump and chose Haley over DeSantis because she wanted more moderates in Washington.
“DeSantis, I think, has probably done a good job when handling emergencies in Florida,” she said. “But other things I don’t think he’s done a good job on.”
When pressed, McLaughlin added: “It’s just a feeling” before alluding to culture war issues that have defined DeSantis’ tenure as governor.
New Hampshire is the land of the grip and the grin, the ultimate testing ground of a candidate’s retail politics skills.
However else Granite Staters may have felt about DeSantis, some believed the Florida governor’s vibes were far from immaculate.
Glenn Hauser, 52, an unaffiliated voter from Bedford who leans Republican, recounted talking to a restaurant worker who has seen dozens of candidates roll through in multiple primary cycles.
“They said [DeSantis] was the worst candidate in the history since they’ve worked there that they’ve seen,” he said, declining to name the restaurant.
“[He] doesn’t have very good interpersonal skills and if you can’t connect with the voters, especially in New Hampshire, where the state is so into the primary, you’re not gonna have a chance,” added Hauser, who described DeSantis as “awkward.”
Hauser intends to vote for Haley on Tuesday, describing both DeSantis and Trump as “vengeful people that tend to focus more on what’s good for them versus what’s good for others.”
Suzane Corwin, 72, a parish nurse from Nashua, was undecided between Haley and DeSantis, though she was leaning toward the former UN ambassador as of Saturday, the day before DeSantis dropped out.
“It’s funny because I like some of the things he says,” said Corwin. “But — this is awful — his voice bothers me. So I don’t think — he doesn’t come across as energetic as she does.”
Many voters who made their decision late in the game were focused on campaign viability.
Miguel Velez, 30, a dentist from Rindge, attended a Haley event Saturday. He was looking for an alternative to Trump and hadn’t thought much about DeSantis.
“I don’t know a whole lot about DeSantis,” he said, holding a baby in his arms. “In terms of Trump, I just feel like [Haley] hit the nail on the head with how she explained the chaos that he’s been bringing.”
As DeSantis contemplated his campaign’s mortality, he underwent a marked change from his earlier anti-establishment persona.
He began granting more interviews to national press outlets he once snubbed, and reflected Friday that he should have been blanketing the so-called “corporate shows” earlier in the race.
On Friday, during what turned out to be his final campaign stop in New Hampshire at the Cara Irish Pub and Restaurant in Dover, DeSantis appeared far looser than he had at the start of his campaign.
“God bless the people of New Hampshire,” his young daughter Madison told the audience to loud cheers from the packed house.
In his remarks, DeSantis mused about how his children have acclimated to the snowy conditions in Iowa and New Hampshire after having been raised in balmy Florida.
He then pivoted to a policy-centric message and fielded questions from voters, while chiding Trump and Haley for being more closed off from the public.
DeSantis’ campaign ended as it started — on X. But that is not likely to be the last America hears of him.
The Florida governor’s term is up following the 2026 election, and he cannot run again because of term limits. That would give him a head start in the race for 2028.
Maybe New Hampshire voters will be less bothered by his voice next time.