At his first town-hall occasion in New Hampshire, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida talked on Tuesday about unlawful immigration in Texas, crime in Chicago, dysfunction on the streets of San Francisco and the wonders of almost each side of Florida — a state he talked about about 80 instances.

Roughly an hour into the occasion, Mr. DeSantis lastly obtained round to saying “New Hampshire.”

His relentless concentrate on Florida was at instances nicely obtained in a state that may play a key function in deciding who leads the Republican Party within the 2024 election towards President Biden. Mr. DeSantis’s feedback appeared to particularly resonate when he linked his actions at dwelling to problems with significance to New Hampshire residents, just like the flood of fentanyl and different lethal medication into their communities.

Still, his self-confident lecture about his document as Florida’s governor left the distinct impression that he believes Republican voters want what he’s providing them greater than he’s involved in what he may be taught from their questions.

“Every year I’ve been governor, we’ve decreased the assumptions in our pension fund,” he boasted, digging deep into the Florida coverage weeds. “In other words, you know, whatever it was when I came in was rosier. And we always reduced down to ensure that no matter what happens, our pension system is going to be funded. I think we’re like eighth-best in the country with that.”

Even his jokes have been Florida-centric, generally to the purpose of obscurity to the group of roughly 250 individuals who packed a carpeted banquet corridor in Hollis, just a few miles from the Massachusetts border. The viewers response was muted when he joked about property costs rising in Naples, Fla., to make some extent about Chicago residents fleeing south to his state.

The fundamental ideological skepticism within the viewers involved Mr. DeSantis’s hard-line stance towards abortion — a place that’s fashionable in closely evangelical states like Iowa however much less so in additional secular New Hampshire.

Like a number of different Republican ladies in attendance, Jayne Beaton, 65, of Amherst, N.H., mentioned she got here with questions concerning the candidate’s place on abortion, and the six-week ban he signed in Florida.

“I predict it’s going to be an issue for him,” she mentioned. “With everything else” in his platform, she added, “I’m onboard and excited, but I’m less sure about abortion, and the six-week ban.”

After taking criticism in latest weeks for not answering questions from voters at his rallies, Mr. DeSantis has held city hall-style occasions in South Carolina, Texas and now New Hampshire since Thursday. Although he has hardly ever confronted robust questions, he has appeared comparatively snug in these unscripted moments, asking voters their names, thanking army veterans for his or her service and sometimes cracking jokes.

Such informal interactions are particularly necessary in New Hampshire — the first-in-the-nation major state whose residents are accustomed to vetting presidential candidates again and again in intimate settings.

“It is a little different here than it is in any other state,” Jason Osborne, the Republican majority chief of the New Hampshire House, who has endorsed the Florida governor for president, mentioned in a telephone interview earlier than the occasion on Tuesday. “We’re so small, we’re the first, so the most candidates are going to touch the state than any others.”

Mr. DeSantis, who has a popularity for being considerably socially awkward, is working arduous to beat a deficit of roughly 30 percentage points within the Granite State towards former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner. He spent extra time answering questions from voters in Hollis than he has at any occasion since saying his candidacy in May.

The viewers, which included many out-of-staters who traveled hours to see Mr. DeSantis, appeared to understand that he had confirmed up. Several instructed him they admired his dealing with of the coronavirus pandemic in Florida. In a veterans-heavy state, he was additionally thanked for his army service and obtained applause when he mentioned he was the one veteran operating within the Republican area.

Mr. DeSantis ducked just one query. A teenage boy invited him to sentence Mr. Trump’s efforts to disrupt the peaceable switch of energy on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. DeSantis declined to take action. All he would say was that he didn’t “enjoy seeing, you know, what happened” that day, however that he had nothing to do with it and Republicans wanted to look ahead, not backward, as a result of in the event that they dwelled on the previous they might lose elections.

When he was lastly requested about Florida’s six-week abortion ban, Mr. DeSantis appeared snug answering the query and, in contrast to Mr. Trump, he made no effort to contort himself to attraction to extra reasonable voters. He mentioned he believed that in America, “life is worth protecting,” and it was necessary to offer providers to help low-income and single moms.

Doreen Monahan, 65, of Spofford, N.H. — who requested Mr. DeSantis the query about abortion, and the burden positioned on taxpayers when ladies who can’t get abortions bear undesirable youngsters — mentioned later that she had been reassured by his reply, together with his mentions of beefed-up postnatal care and adoption packages.

“It’s nice that they have some options,” she mentioned. “I have friends who waited years to adopt.”

She mentioned she had reached out to Mr. DeSantis’s marketing campaign to ask about exceptions to the six-week ban, and felt extra snug after listening to particulars.

Mr. DeSantis pitched two fundamental arguments towards Mr. Trump, with out naming him. The first was that change couldn’t come to Washington if Republicans saved shedding elections. The second was his theme of “no excuses” — a shot at Mr. Trump’s failure to ship on core guarantees resembling finishing a wall alongside the southern border.

An older man instructed Mr. DeSantis that he had voted twice to “drain the swamp,” however that it by no means occurred. He needed to know what Mr. DeSantis would do otherwise from Mr. Trump.

Mr. DeSantis opened his response by recalling how thrilling it was in 2016 to listen to the rally chants of “drain the swamp.” But then he took two unsubtle pictures on the former president.

Mr. DeSantis mentioned that “the swamp” in Washington was worse now than ever and that to “break the swamp,” a president have to be disciplined and targeted, and have the “humility” to know he can’t do it on his personal. The viewers cheered when he promised to fireside the Trump-appointed F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, and switch the Justice Department “inside out.”

Mr. DeSantis appeared at his most animated towards the tip of the rally when a girl requested him about Covid vaccines. In response, the governor denounced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, calling their efforts to advertise vaccines a “total disaster.” He additionally attacked large pharmaceutical corporations, and highlighted a examine by Florida’s well being division that purported to point out elevated well being dangers for younger males who took mRNA vaccines but that was widely criticized by scientists.

“These Covid restrictions and mandates were not about your health,” Mr. DeSantis mentioned. “It was about them controlling your behavior.”

The DeSantis marketing campaign has leaned closely into criticizing how Mr. Trump dealt with the pandemic, seeing widespread anger amongst Republicans over vaccines, masking, faculty closures and social-distancing measures as a chance to peel voters away from the previous president.

The crowd responded approvingly to Mr. DeSantis’s eight-minute tirade towards what he referred to as “the medical swamp.”

Mark Pearson, a Republican state consultant in New Hampshire who has endorsed Mr. DeSantis, mentioned in an interview this month that he had seen the governor develop extra assured as a retail politician.

In May, Mr. Pearson mentioned, he instructed Mr. DeSantis that he wanted to interact instantly with New Hampshire voters.

“I told him, ‘Here’s what I suggest you do: You walk the rope line, you drop into the diners, you go to the small venues,’” he recounted. “‘But it better be real, Ron, because we can smell a phony from a mile away, because we’ve been doing this for a hundred years.’”