Takeaways from CNN's New Hampshire town hall with Ron DeSantis | News Channel 3-12

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : In May last year, he signed legislation to defund DEI programs at Florida public schools.
51% : That comment would've raised eyebrows back home in Florida when DeSantis was embroiled in a fight with Disney and revoked the company's decades-old self-governance privileges around its Orlando-area theme parks after it criticized a state law banning certain classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
45% : He used the event to make the case that with a conservative policy record, he would be better able than Haley to consolidate Republican support; and with less personal baggage, he'd be better positioned than Trump to win a general election.
42% : "He tried to underline the point by saying that a number of Trump supporters in Iowa had told him that they liked him and would have backed him if the former president hadn't also been on the ballot.
40% : And yes, the party went to a caucus to try to rig it for Trump," he said, referring to the Nevada Republican Party's decision to run its own caucuses.
39% : Trump won't debate his Republican rivals.
34% : The day after finishing a distant second to Trump - though just ahead of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley - in Iowa's caucuses, the Florida governor fielded questions in New Hampshire at a town hall moderated by CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
33% : He didn't launch any new attacks on Haley and Trump but did seek to make clear he remains a factor in the race.
33% : He mentioned Trump's lack of participation in the primary debates, acknowledged how his supportfor the former president from his days as a congressman changed over time and hit Trump over Covid-19.
28% : That's changed now that the Florida governor has little to lose -- unlike Trump, who won the Iowa caucuses by a record-setting margin, and Haley, who polls suggest is battling Trump for first place in New Hampshire with DeSantis in a distant third.
24% : DeSantis is, in effect, saying that if you do not want to nominate Trump, then he's the guy people should support.
20% : ""If Donald Trump is the nominee, the election will revolve around all these legal issues, his trials, perhaps convictions if he goes to trials and loses there and about things like January 6," DeSantis said.
18% : "If Donald Trump is the nominee, the election will revolve around all these legal issues," DeSantis said.
16% : "She does not have the ability to win the kind of coalition that you need to win a Republican primary - period, much less take on Donald Trump," DeSantis said.
10% : He also jabbed Haley for refusing to take part in any future debates, lumping her in with President Joe Biden and Trump as candidates running from their "basements.

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