Poll: Ron DeSantis drops to third place in Ohio GOP Primary

New polling from the Buckeye State is bad news for Ron DeSantis, who is slumping despite claiming the state of Ohio as part of his heritage in recent months.

The Florida Governor’s presidential campaign is polling in single digits. According to a survey conducted between July 17 and July 26 by Ohio Northern University, DeSantis finds himself in third place.

DeSantis has just 9% support, 3 points behind Vivek Ramaswamy and 55 points behind former President Donald Trump.

The Governor doesn’t have a firm hold on third place either. Former Vice President Mike Pence has 6% support.

This poll is by far the worst for DeSantis in Ohio.

A USA Today survey conducted between July 9 and July 12 by Suffolk University shows Trump leading DeSantis by only 23 points, 48% to 25%. Ramaswamy was in low single digits in that poll.

Meanwhile, a June poll from East Carolina University saw Trump leading DeSantis 59% to 15%.

DeSantis has made political appearances in Ohio this year, albeit before the formal launch of his presidential campaign. He visited the state while South Florida was dealing with historic flooding in the spring.

The Governor, addressing the Butler County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, said in April he represented so-called “Ohio values.”

“I can stand here representing Ohio values because the two most important women in my life (are from Ohio),” DeSantis said. “My mother is from Youngstown, and my wife is from Troy, and so my family reflects your family.”

The Governor also touted his Buckeye State ties in his memoir, “The Courage to be Free.”

“I was geographically raised in Tampa Bay,” DeSantis writes, “but culturally, my upbringing reflected the working-class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio — from weekly church attendance to the expectation that one would earn his keep. This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving.”

During a recent appearance touting the book with the Fox News Channel’s Mark Levin, DeSantis explained how the region’s values formed him and buoyed his innate sense of conservatism.

“My father’s from western Pennsylvania, my mother’s from Northeastern Ohio. So that is, like, steel country. That is like blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth. And, as you know, Mark, Florida’s very eclectic. People kind of come from all over, we do have a culture, and so I grew up in that culture, but really it was kind of those Rust Belt values that raised me.”