He Backed Down.

Steve Cortes – the former national spokesman for pro-Ron DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down – threw his support behind Donald Trump after the former president won this week’s Iowa caucus by nearly 30 points.

Cortes stepped down from his position at Never Back Down back in October and refrained from discussing the 2024 election for months, until publishing an op-ed on Wednesday headlined “Only Trump Can Save America.”

“I believed that Republican voters were ready for a new post-Trump chapter of the America First movement. I now believe I was wrong,” Cortes wrote in his RealClearPolitics piece.

“Those of us who backed Ron DeSantis – or the other Republican candidates – should read the room. Former President Trump winnowed the field effortlessly and then crushed the remaining three candidates in Iowa. He leads in the polls everywhere else. It is time to coalesce and unite behind the clear preference of the GOP grassroots, Donald John Trump.”

Cortes served as a Trump campaign adviser in 2016 and 2020, but endorsed the Florida governor in May of last year, saying DeSantis “represents the best possible option to win the presidency in 2024 and to govern as a highly capable, patriotic populist leader.”

Cortes had given signs he was more confident in Trump’s 2024 chances before he stepped away from DeSantis’ camp.

In July, he had infamously said Trump was the “runaway front-runner” in the primary and that DeSantis faced an “uphill battle.”

DeSantis, 45, finished a distant second behind Trump, 77, in Iowa — gaining 21.2% of the vote compared to the former president’s 51.0%

The Florida governor claimed Monday night that his second-place finish had punched his “ticket” out of Iowa, and is planning to campaign in New Hampshire and South Carolina in a bid to outdo both Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.