MANCHESTER, N.H. — As Republicans here seek a standard-bearer, Nikki Haley is making herself scarce, and GOP insiders say that could doom her long-shot bid to beat former President Donald Trump in Tuesday’s primary.

Haley has forced the cancellation of two planned debates in New Hampshire — one sponsored by ABC News and the other by CNN — by refusing to go toe-to-toe with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Her schedule is light on campaign stops in a state where candidates typically pack their days with events. And, since failing to identify slavery as a cause of the Civil War last month, she has stopped taking questions on stage from voters.

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Haley’s team is gambling that less of her will end up being more in a race that is down to three candidates, with one of them — DeSantis — already having decided to pack it in and move his fading campaign to South Carolina.

That’s a bad bet, said Dave Carney, a veteran New Hampshire-based Republican strategist who described the state’s history of vetting presidential candidates through free-flowing town hall-style forums as sacred. Haley’s refusal to debate and take questions at her first post-Iowa event in the state could kill her campaign, he said.

“As an incumbent, maybe, or somebody who’s a front-runner — sure, you’re ahead, you’re not taking any risks,” Carney, who is neutral in the race, added. “But when you’re in second place? You need to throw f—ing Hail Marys. You have five nights left.”

In interviews with more than a half-dozen Republican officials and party strategists familiar with New Hampshire presidential primaries, NBC News found none who thought Haley would benefit by keeping her distance from voters. But she is also dealing with the reality that her uphill battle became steeper when businessman Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race Monday and threw his support to Trump.

“Everybody in New Hampshire is disappointed” about Haley choosing not to debate, said Julianna Bergeron, a Republican National Committee member from the state who has not endorsed a candidate. She said declining to take questions from voters on the stump gives off a similar vibe and that Haley’s highly controlled campaigning could turn off voters who are still undecided.

“I can’t be positive,” Bergeron said, “but, yeah, I do think it matters.”

Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas rejected the idea that Haley is avoiding New Hampshire voters.

“This is complete and total nonsense,” Perez-Cubas said. “She landed at 4 a.m. the morning after Iowa and had a full day of local press, retail stops, meetings with voters, and a rally in the North Country. After a brief stop back [in South Carolina] this morning to see her family, she’s back in New Hampshire today with two stops this evening and a flat-out schedule until Election Day.”

One Haley backer in New Hampshire, former state Rep. Kim Rice, countered that the former United Nations ambassador will do “plenty” of events and “a lot of retail stops” in the state and is “just getting them all wrapped up.”

“Nikki Haley is one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met,” Rice added. “She will be out there working hard in New Hampshire to earn every vote, shaking every hand.”

A Suffolk University/NBC10 Boston/Boston Globe poll of likely New Hampshire primary voters released Wednesday showed Trump leading at 50%, followed by Haley at 34% and DeSantis in a far distant third, at 5%.

DeSantis has majorly downshifted in New Hampshire, emphasizing South Carolina, where he hopes he can surprise and surpass Haley, the state’s former governor, and prolong his struggling candidacy. But while he has lowered expectations for his performance in next week’s Granite State primary, Haley has raised hers, declaring after Iowa that she and Trump are now locked in a two-person race.

Haley’s decision to avoid debates, which Trump has been skipping since they began last summer, gave DeSantis more license to bolt from New Hampshire. But it didn’t free Haley from the assumption that she would campaign harder here. She has long made clear that the state was central to her strategy, famously telling voters in New Hampshire in early January that they would “correct” the outcome of the Iowa caucuses.