Ron DeSantis will return to New Hampshire, plans future focus on Upstate South Carolina

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign is putting out guidance as to its future plans.

For starters, the campaign is returning to New Hampshire on Monday, a day before the First in the Nation Primary, as a guest of the supportive Never Back Down super PAC.

Though the Governor appears poised to finish with less than 10%, if the most recent polling is accurate, and has no ad buys going currently in the state, he seems to be responding to a narrative from earlier this week that he had cut bait on the state entirely.

“I’ve been up here a number of days in New Hampshire since Iowa, and I’m the only one that’s not running a basically a basement campaign. I mean, I’m out there taking questions from the media. I’m doing town halls. I got two more today. I did one live on CNN and I committed to do both debates. We were supposed to do one on ABC WMUR last night, and then one on Sunday on CNN, but neither of the other candidates are willing to do it,” DeSantis said to Neil Cavuto on Friday, when asked about his alleged lack of presence in the state.

The weekend, meanwhile, finds DeSantis in South Carolina. He’s in Myrtle Beach, Florence, and Lexington on Saturday, and while the Sunday itinerary hasn’t been announced, DeSantis Campaign Deputy Campaign Manager David Polyansky says people can expect to “see the governor spend a lot of time especially up in the Greenville, Spartanburg area.”

“We’re excited to go up there and really drive home our bonafides on the issues that matter to people of faith the most,” Polyansky said, suggesting that some of the same messaging and signaling that helped DeSantis to second place in Iowa may recur in the Palmetto State.

Polling shows he has ground to make up there too. The last two polls from the state show him under 10% there, just as in New Hampshire. However, Donald Trump is even stronger in South Carolina, with roughly 2/3 of the electorate in the most recent surveys.