After staff shake-ups and internal turmoil at the major super PAC backing him, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said he wants a team in his orbit that shares his vision and to have a “backbone” on a podcast in Iowa on Friday.
Weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the Florida governor is fighting to gain momentum in an effort to catch up to former President Donald Trump in the Republican primary. But in recent weeks, six leaders associated with the Never Back Down PAC have resigned, and its chief strategist left following a Washington Post expose that detailed internal fighting and finger-pointing as the campaign sputtered.
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The campaign has attempted to portray the latest staff shake-up as a new way to reboot the governor’s campaign. The Florida Republican was asked about the difficulty in keeping a close-knit inner circle by father-son duo Sawyer and Tork Whisler on their podcast, Barn Talk.
“I look for people that are independent; they have to share the vision, but as issues come up, you know, they’ve got to give their best judgment on all this stuff,” DeSantis said in response to the question. “You don’t want to just have a bunch of yes men around. You want them to be able to articulate, ‘Hey, I think this, I think that,’ and not fear that they have to just tell me what I want to hear.”
“Here’s the thing: I don’t want people blowing smoke up my rear end,” DeSantis added. “You want to have people that have some strength and have some fortitude. So, that’s what I look for, and I definitely don’t want people to just flatter me; that does not go anywhere with me as a leader.”
However, reports suggest DeSantis tested the limits of his super PAC by having his presidential campaign, which launched in May, working closely with Never Back Down PAC. Unlike super PACs of the past that primarily pumped money into advertising campaigns without consultation with the candidate, Never Back Down became a regular part of the campaign infrastructure, including lining up events for the Florida governor to attend.
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This summer, it was clear the campaign was attempting to get into the driver’s seat. In early July, the campaign wrote donors a memo emphasizing a strategy of allocating resources to the early states instead of Super Tuesday in an effort to drive momentum. However, the scope of the super PAC's field operation was originally designed to include Super Tuesday states like California and Texas, generating confusion about the strategy.
DeSantis is going all in on Iowa, visiting all 99 counties in the state in a push to outhustle Trump. If the Florida governor doesn’t have a good showing in the Hawkeye State, Republican operatives aren’t confident his campaign could last much longer.