Ron DeSantis drew only a few dozen people to a $1 beer campaign event in New Hampshire, according to local reports.
The event, held Saturday in Concord, initially drew approximately two dozen people, according to NBC News. The original price for the event — which allows voters to drink a beer with Mr DeSantis — was set at $50, but was later slashed to $1 in order to bolster turnout.
The event reportedly started a half-hour late, and only 30 people were in attendance.
Discussing the event on MSNBC, reporter Jonathan Allen quipped that "maybe [Mr DeSantis's campaign] should have offered something harder ... maybe half a bottle of liquor or something."
He also noted that Mr DeSantis later attended a house party, which only drew about 35 attendees.
Allen said that the governor's last few campaign trips have failed to draw many supporters and has resulted in numerous viral clips of the candidate looking awkward while engaging with voters.
"So, he spent four days in New Hampshire, he had a couple of good events with slightly larger crowds, but maybe he met 2- or 300 people over the course of four days, which is wasted campaign time at this point in a presidential primary," Allen said. "It also says this comes on the back end of a two-day bus tour of Iowa, where we saw images and recordings of DeSantis struggling to talk with voters, to connect with them, asking a child at one point about the sugar content of his Icee."
In the "Icee" incident, Mr DeSantis notes that a child is holding a frozen drink from a local store, and seems to suggest its not a healthy choice.
"Oh what is that? An Icee?" he asks. "That's probably a lot of sugar, huh?"
Later the same night, an 82-year-old farmer told the governor that he can't work the same acreage he used to since his wife died from cancer, and asked about his thoughts on ethanol as a renewable fuel for cars.
Instead of taking the chance to offer the farmer sympathy for his struggles, Mr DeSantis launched into prepared comments about stemming "this rush to electric vehicles."
Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis drinks a beer at a low-turnout event in New Hampshire— (screengrab/@iarnsdorf)
Despite these incidents, Mr DeSantis's team has insisted that he is not struggling to connect with voters, painting the critical coverage as organised media hit jobs trying to undermine the governor.
"The media will continue their obsession with endless clickbait stories that do nothing to inform voters, and Ron DeSantis will keep sharing his plans to declare American's economic independence and restore sanity in our country as the next president," Andrew Romeo, Mr DeSantis's campaign spokesman, said.
Mr Romeo said that though "some candidates think they are entitled to the nomination, the governor will not be outworked and will fight for every vote, one day at a time."
