Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is shrugging off his polling struggles, even as he trails former President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in some recent surveys.
A new NBC News poll found that DeSantis' support among GOP primary voters declined from 31% in April to 22%, while Trump's lead grew to 51%.
DeSantis said the presidential race was a "marathon, not a sprint," during a recent interview with NBC and claimed that he was the better candidate to win the swing states.
"I think if you look [at] the swing states, [President Joe] Biden beats Trump in the swing states and I beat Biden handily in the swing states — that's ultimately the election right there," DeSantis told NBC on Monday during a visit to the Eagle Pass section of the southern border in Texas.
DeSantis said the Republican presidential nominee must be able to win the swing states such as Georgia, Arizona, Florida, Texas and Wisconsin.
"If you don't have a path to do that, then nominating doesn't make sense," he reportedly said.
"I've grown to think, at the end of the day, this is a marathon, not a sprint," DeSantis added later. "We're doing everything we need to do in these early states."
DeSantis is headed north to one of the early states on Tuesday, with a town hall event scheduled to be held in the southern New Hampshire town of Hollis. Despite his early presence in New Hampshire, DeSantis is trailing Trump by more than 30 points in each of two recent state polls.
Many in the GOP seem to believe that Trump will ultimately clinch the nomination, despite the Iowa caucuses and first primary elections still being a long way off.
A new Morning Consult poll shows the widest gap between Trump and DeSantis since tracking for the 2024 Republican race began, with Trump at 57% support and DeSantis at 19%. Trump is ahead of Biden in the general election in that poll, while DeSantis is behind.
DeSantis told NBC that the primary is "a two-man race" between him and Trump and said his campaign is currently educating voters about his candidacy.
According to the RealClearPolitics polling average for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Trump leads DeSantis by 30.6 points.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.