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Ron DeSantis’s 2024 US presidential campaign operation is going through another bout of turmoil just weeks before the first votes are cast in the crucial Iowa Republican caucuses.
The Florida governor is fighting to regain momentum in his race to catch Donald Trump in the Republican primary, but has suffered new blows in the past fortnight, with the departure of two chief executives, the board chair, and other staff from the powerful spending group backing his bid.
The super Pac Never Back Down has amassed more than $130mn this election cycle to put DeSantis in the White House.
But the latest upheaval at the group will raise further questions about its ability to effectively boost DeSantis six weeks before voters begin the process of choosing their 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
The staff shake-up was evidence of “full-blown panic” in the campaign, said Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist who co-led a super Pac backing Mike Pence, the former vice-president who recently dropped out of the race.
“DeSantis has not picked up a single vote during this super Pac drama,” said Reed, adding that it had “totally drowned out his campaign message”.
The troubles at Never Back Down come as DeSantis struggles to gain ground on Trump and large donors — from the libertarian network of billionaire Charles Koch to Wall Street GOP financiers — back Nikki Haley as their alternative to the former president.
Some big donors like Nevada hotel magnate Robert Bigelow, who gave more than $20mn to Never Back Down this year, are switching back to Trump.
Oil baron Harold Hamm, who contributed to the DeSantis and Haley campaigns, reportedly gave a big cheque to a pro-Trump super Pac in October, despite telling him to drop out of the race earlier this year.
“I don’t think I ever was against Donald Trump,” Hamm told the Financial Times. “I thought other folks ought to have a chance — and they have had that opportunity, but Donald Trump has a heck of a base.”
“He is sure a long ways ahead,” Hamm added. “It’s just math.”
The latest shake-up in the DeSantis campaign saw Chris Jankowski, the super Pac’s chief executive, leave just before the Thanksgiving holiday last month. His interim replacement, Kristin Davison, departed shortly afterwards. Former Nevada attorney-general Adam Laxalt, the chair of the super Pac’s board, also left.
The turmoil has prompted anonymous finger-pointing in the press by DeSantis supporters over who is to blame for the candidate’s failures. One DeSantis donor acknowledged the “frustration” with Never Back Down’s chief strategist Jeff Roe.
DeSantis supporters have sought to portray the latest staff shake-up as a way to reboot the governor’s campaign — again.
Scott Wagner, Never Back Down’s new chair and third chief executive in two weeks, is a longtime DeSantis ally. A new pro-DeSantis super Pac, Fight Right, helmed by other loyalists, has begun to raise money to air negative advertisements against Haley in Iowa.
DeSantis supporters also point to the campaign’s advantages heading into the Iowa caucuses, including an impressive field operation, massive ad spending, and coveted endorsements from the state’s governor Kim Reynolds and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats.
“Never Back Down has the most organised, advanced caucus operation of anyone in the 2024 primary field”, said Jessica Szymanski, a spokesperson for the group.
Roy Bailey, a DeSantis fundraiser and Texas businessman, praised the super Pac staff shake-up, saying the pro-DeSantis operation would benefit from having fewer “cooks in the kitchen”.
He said that Never Back Down had built “the greatest ground game” in presidential politics but its successes have lately been “overshadowed by the noise” and leaks to the press.
Some DeSantis supporters say if he gets a close second place to Trump in Iowa in the January 15 caucuses, it will amount to something like a victory, given the low expectations. From mid-August to late October, his polling among likely Iowa caucus-voters fell from 19 per cent to 16 per cent, according to a Des Moines Register/NBC News poll. Trump was at 43 per cent.
A senior DeSantis campaign official said the Never Back Down staff carousel “means nothing”.
“The termination of operatives that not a single Iowan can name isn’t relevant to our historic ground game and momentum in the state,” added the official. “The media might care, but voters don’t.”
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