Florida governor Ron DeSantis was involved in a car crash in Tennessee on Tuesday morning while he was on the campaign trail.
“This morning, the governor was in a car accident while traveling to an event in Chattanooga, Tennessee,” DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said in a public statement released to the press. “He and his team are uninjured.”
“We appreciate the prayers and well wishes of the nation for his continued protection while on the campaign trail,” he added. Police later clarified that one staffer suffered a minor injury.
DeSantis was expected to appear at a fundraiser held at a private residence in Chattanooga, Tenn., later on Tuesday. Prices reportedly range from $2,000 to $10,000 per couple, the Chattanooga Times Free Press noted.
The incident comes as the DeSantis campaign has struggled to claw into frontrunner Donald Trump’s lead among Republican primary voters. Despite raising $150 million so far, the governor has stagnated in presidential polls, prompting his campaign to tell donors that a “reset” was underway.
In late June, a Saint Anselm College poll found DeSantis trailing the former president by 28 points in New Hampshire, after having fallen 10 points since March. “I think it’s a little early to call New Hampshire and some of the doomsaying about DeSantis I think is a bit premature,” Dante Scala, a professor of politics at the University of New Hampshire, told National Review at the time.
“It’s no question though that Trump [has continued to attract] Republican voters here and nationally,” he added. “You can’t discount that. He’s the one to beat. But I do think there’s something to be said for the fact that it takes New Hampshire voters a long time to make up their minds. They may be parked with Trump right now, but it’s possible that . . . they might not be there — not all of them — when it is all said and done.”
In mid July, the governor cut ten staffers off his roster in a bid to lower operating expenses.
“The DeSantis campaign is recalibrating. It’s clear it needs to,” Terry Sullivan, Marco Rubio’s former presidential campaign manager, told the Associated Press. “But at the end of the day, they’re still better positioned than any other challenger to Donald Trump, times 10.”
Last week, the governor spoke in Nashville for a GOP state dinner that drew nearly 2,000 supporters.