Josh Kraushaar poll: Desantis +8 in Iowa, tied in NH

[Matty]

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/26/desantis-iowa-new-hampshire-polls

Two new polls from a top Republican polling firm — provided exclusively to Axios — find Florida Gov. DeSantis is running more competitively with former President Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire than he is faring in national surveys.

Driving the news: The surveys, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies from March 21 to 23 for an outside client (not a candidate or super PAC) found DeSantis leading Trump by eight points (45%-37%) in a head-to-head matchup in Iowa and tied with Trump (39%-39%) in New Hampshire.

[President Johnson]

Color me skeptical. Doesn't line up with national polls.

[Spectator]

Definitely not a “top Republican polling firm” with an agenda of setting the narrative favorable for DeSantis 🙄

[BG-NY]

Where are the crosstabs? As long as it's not Ruffini I'm not going to call it bunk, but would be interested in seeing demographic splits.

[Holmes]

Josh wishes.

[Comrade Funk]

Rich, establishment Republican push poll

[THG]

Do people not realize that national polls this far out are pretty meaningless? Ask President Clinton (2008) or Jeb! and Rudy Giluani.

Also, these early polls do line up with a decent number of statewide NH/IA polls, including Selzer's. Not saying that they're the gospel or that Trump isn't the frontrunner, but the dismissive attitude people treat it on here reeks of hubris.

[BG-NY]

https://twitter.com/purrtah/status/1640105073786376192?s=46

[wbrocks67]

Definitely not a “top Republican polling firm” with an agenda of setting the narrative favorable for DeSantis 🙄

Axios and Jotline are both such messes.

[oldtimer]

Josh Kraushaar selling a bill a goods again ?

[TimeUnit2027]

Color me skeptical. Doesn't line up with national polls.

Because that is about first two states which gives momentum
I don't know firm though so they might not be a good.

[Vosem]

Should be noted that Iowa in particular has a caucus format and so is capable of showing results widely differentiated from national totals. (See the most recent Democratic primary, at which it was won by Pete Buttigieg; Iowa also has not backed a GOP winner in a contested primary since 2000, having since voted for Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz).

Anyway, behind the scenes DeSantis has already lined up support from the Governor of Iowa (Kim Reynolds), which is going to matter a lot in a machine-y state, and is thought to be friendly with/likely to get the support of the Governor of New Hampshire (Chris Sununu) -- which is actually likely to matter much less, since Sununu couldn't even get his intended congressional nominees through in 2022. In terms of paid media, DeSantis is also likely to enormously swamp Trump in both states; how much free media Trump will get is still questionable but it seems like it at least won't be at 2016 levels.

But with that said it seems like some of the more wacky NHGOP figures, like Bolduc, are getting plucked by Haley rather than Trump, who I think has not been doing a great deal of reaching-out to possible endorsers even where friendly. Tough to say how much it'll matter but some of the organization that nominated Trumpy congressional candidates in 2022 in NH won't be in his corner.

(NH is frankly questionable; the whole Northeast was very strong for Trump in 2016 and wasn't really part of Cruz's path to victory. But IA is a sine qua non for any anti-Trump effort; if Trump wins IA he's running ahead of his 2016 benchmarks.)

[2016]

National Polls are absolutely meaningless.

Seltzer had Trumps Favorables in IA waaay down and now we this Poll with DeSantis leading Trump in IA.

Let's get one thing straight: Just like the Presidential Election is decided by the Electoral College the Republican Nomination is decided on a State-by-State Basis with Delegates.

[Agafin]

Desantis really needed a poll like this. He should go all in on Iowa and New Hampshire. South Carolina is imo demographically favorable to him. If he performs well in the first two, he almost certainly wins that one even with Harris still in the race. Nevada on the other hand is demographically favorable to Trump so he (Desantis) better be in a strong position by the time the race reaches there.