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What Went Wrong for Ron DeSantis

by Aurelia Butler 24 December 2023, 09:02

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida woke up in Iowa with a familiar political headache.The man he is chasing in the polls, Donald J. Trump, had just been disqualified from the ballot in Colorado in yet another legal assault that Mr. Trump leveraged to cast himself as a victim. And so Mr. DeSantis trod carefully the next morning outside Des Moines when he called Mr. Trump a “high-risk” choice, alluding to “all the other issues” — 91 felony counts, four indictments, the Colorado ruling — facing the former president.“I don’t think it’s fair,” Mr. DeSantis said. “But it’s reality.”He was talking about Mr. Trump’s predicament. But he could just as easily have been talking about his own.Boxed in by a base enamored with Mr. Trump that has instinctively rallied to the former president’s defense, Mr. DeSantis has struggled for months to match the hype that followed his landslide 2022 re-election. Now, with the first votes in the Iowa caucuses only weeks away on Jan. 15, Mr. DeSantis has slipped in some polls into third place, behind Nikki Haley, and has had to downsize his once-grand national ambitions to the simple hopes that a strong showing in a single state — Iowa — could vault him back into contention.For a candidate who talks at length about his own disinterest in “managing America’s decline,” people around Mr. DeSantis are increasingly talking about managing his.Ryan Tyson, Mr. DeSantis’s longtime pollster and one of his closest advisers, has privately said to multiple people that they are now at the point in the campaign where they need to “make the patient comfortable,” a phrase evoking hospice care. Others have spoken of a coming period of reputation management, both for the governor and themselves, after a slow-motion implosion of the relationship between the campaign and an allied super PAC left even his most ardent supporters drained and demoralized.The same December evening Mr. DeSantis held a triumphant rally in celebration of visiting the last of Iowa’s 99 counties — the symbolic culmination of his effort to out-hustle Mr. Trump there — his super PAC, Never Back Down, fired three of its top officials, prompting headlines that undercut the achievement.An event in Newton, Iowa, this month celebrating Mr. DeSantis having visited each of the state’s 99 counties. That same day, an allied super PAC fired three top officials.Vincent Alban/ReutersThe turmoil at the super PAC — which followed a summer of turbulence inside the campaign — has been almost too frequent to be believed. The super PAC’s chief executive quit, the board chairman resigned, the three top officials were fired and then the chief strategist stepped down — all in less than a month, enveloping Mr. DeSantis’s candidacy in exactly the kind of chaos for which he once cast himself as the antidote.The New York Times interviewed for this article more than a dozen current and past advisers to Mr. DeSantis and his allied groups, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a candidate they still support and a campaign that is still soldiering on. Those advisers paint a portrait of a disillusioned presidential candidacy, marked by finger-pointing, fatalism and grand plans designed in a Tallahassee hotel in early spring gone awry by winter.Cash is scarce as the caucuses near. Never Back Down, which spent heavily to knock on doors in far-flung states like North Carolina and California last summer, canceled its remaining television ads in Iowa and New Hampshire on Friday, though new pro-DeSantis super PACs are picking up the slack.Federal records show that, by the time of the Iowa caucuses, the DeSantis campaign is on pace to spend significantly more on private jets — the governor’s preferred mode of travel — than on airing television ads.Andrew Romeo, Mr. DeSantis’s communication director, denied the governor’s candidacy was in disarray. In addition, the campaign provided a statement from Mr. Tyson denying his remarks about making the patient comfortable.“Different day, same media hit job based on unnamed sources with agendas,” Mr. Romeo said. “While the media tried to proclaim this campaign dead back in August, Ron DeSantis fought back and enters the home stretch in Iowa as the hardest working candidate with the most robust ground game. DeSantis has been underestimated in every race he’s ever run and always proved the doubters wrong — we are confident he will defy the odds once again on Jan. 15.”Mr. DeSantis, in other words, is still hoping for a turnaround in 2024. This is the story of how he lost 2023.Miscalculations, mistakes and missing the momentThe governor started the year as the undisputed Trump alternative in a Republican Party still stinging from its unexpected 2022 midterm losses.But behind the scenes, the DeSantis candidacy has been hobbled for months by an unusual and unwieldy structure — one top official lamented that it was a “Frankenstein” creation — that pushed the legal bounds of the law that limits strategic coordination and yet was still beset by miscommunications. Those structural problems compounded a series of strategic miscalculations and audacious if not arrogant assumptions that led to early campaign layoffs. Profligate spending and overly bullish fund-raising projections put the campaign on the financial brink after only two months.The candidate himself, prone to mistrusting his own advisers, did not have a wide enough inner circle to fill both a campaign and super PAC with close allies, leaving the super PAC in the hands of newcomers who clashed with the campaign almost from the start.Mr. DeSantis’s decision to delay his entry into the race until after Florida’s legislative session concluded meant he was on the sidelines during Mr. Trump’s most vulnerable period last winter. Then, once Mr. DeSantis did hit the trail, he struggled to connect, appearing far more comfortable with policy than people as awkward encounters went viral.“You’re running against a former president — you’re going to have to be perfect and to get lucky,” said a person working at high levels to elect Mr. DeSantis and who was not authorized to speak publicly. “We’ve been unlucky and been far from perfect.”In Mr. Trump, the governor has also found himself running against a rival who filled the upper ranks of his operation with veteran consultants that Mr. DeSantis had discarded. The Trump team used its insider knowledge of his idiosyncrasies and insecurities to mercilessly undermine him, from his footwear to his facial expressions, starting months before he entered the race.While Mr. DeSantis has struggled to connect with voters, appearing far more comfortable with policy than people, former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign has relentlessly criticized his footwear and facial expressions. Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis tacked to the right to win over Trump voters, undercutting his own electability case with hard-line stances, including on abortion. For many Republicans, President Biden’s weak standing tempered any urgency to pick a so-called electable choice. And when the debates began, Mr. DeSantis underperformed initially in the bright glare of the national spotlight.Remarkably, in a race Mr. Trump has dominated for eight months, it is Mr. DeSantis who has sustained the most negative advertising — nearly $35 million in super PAC attacks as of Saturday, more than Mr. Trump and every other G.O.P. contender combined.Among other early errors: The DeSantis team had penciled in that Ken Griffin, the billionaire investor, would give his super PAC at least $25 million and likely $50 million, according to three people familiar with the matter. Mr. Griffin neither gave nor endorsed, and by the fall, the super PAC’s chief strategist, Jeff Roe, had recommended searching for more than $20 million in spending cutbacks — a remarkable budget shortfall for a group seeded with $100 million only months earlier.Never Back Down bragged about knocking on two million doors by September — but more than 700,000 were households outside the key early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.Mr. DeSantis’s popularity rose during the coronavirus pandemic because he made enemies of the right people — in the media, at Martha’s Vineyard, at the White House — clashes that were invariably amplified by conservative news media. Suddenly, he found himself in the cross hairs of the country’s most popular Republican.“I used to think in Republican primaries you kind of could just do Fox News and talk radio and all that,” Mr. DeSantis told the Iowa conservative news host Steve Deace in October. “And, one, I don’t think that’s enough but, two, there’s just the fact that our conservative media sphere, you know, it’s not necessarily promoting conservatism. They’ve got agendas, too.”Running against a former president would require an insurgent campaign. But Mr. DeSantis had grown accustomed to the creature comforts of the Tallahassee governor’s mansion, where a donor had installed a golf simulator for him, and even his rebranded “leaner-meaner” campaign that slashed one-third of his staff wouldn’t give up private jets.Some allies still hope Never Back Down’s door-knocking will carry the day in Iowa, reinvigorating his run by defying ever-diminished expectations. Of late, Mr. DeSantis has resorted to parochial pandering, promising to relocate parts of the Department of Agriculture to the state.“He’s come into his own now — it took a while,” said Mr. Deace, who supports Mr. DeSantis and campaigned with him in recent days. “The question is now: Is there enough runway to manifest that on caucus night?”From the start, the DeSantis theory had been that undecided Trump supporters would have one other ideological home, with a governor running as an unabashed Trump-style Republican. Once Mr. DeSantis was the only Trump alternative, the thinking went, the smaller anti-Trump faction would come along to forge a new majority.But after the first indictment, soft Trump supporters returned en masse to the former president. And Mr. DeSantis soon lost ground to Ms. Haley in courting the moderate anti-Trump wing.His standing in national polling averages has steadily declined, from above 30 percent in January 2023 to close to 12 percent today.Supporters of Mr. Trump outside the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta in August. “If I could have one thing change, I wish Trump hadn’t been indicted on any of this stuff,” Mr. DeSantis said last week. “It’s sucked out a lot of oxygen.”Kenny Holston/The New York TimesMr. DeSantis himself has begun to look back at what might have been. “If I could have one thing change, I wish Trump hadn’t been indicted on any of this stuff,” Mr. DeSantis recently told the Christian Broadcasting Network. “It’s sucked out a lot of oxygen.”Some questioned the wisdom of running even before the campaign began. Shortly after Mr. Trump was indicted in late March, as Republicans rallied around the former president, one adviser called Mr. DeSantis’s soon-to-be campaign manager, Generra Peck, to suggest that maybe this cycle was not his time.The concern was quickly dismissed.A closed-door strategy sessionThe DeSantis team had banked more than $80 million by the spring of 2023 — left over from his re-election effort — and needed to figure out how to use it.Federal law did not allow a direct transfer to a campaign account. So they decided to fund an allied super PAC that would be led by Mr. Roe, a polarizing operative who had managed the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in 2016, and served as a top strategist for Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. Ms. Peck told people at the time that recruiting Mr. Roe would help keep those rivals, especially Mr. Youngkin, on the sidelines. It didn’t hurt either that Mr. Roe had led Mr. Cruz to win the Iowa caucuses.The first week of April — days after the first Trump indictment — all the top strategists involved in Mr. DeSantis’s soon-to-be presidential campaign gathered inside a conference room at the AC Marriott in Tallahassee. On one side of the table was the team that would eventually run his campaign, led by Ms. Peck. On the other were the operatives running his allied super PAC, led by Mr. Roe and the super PAC’s chief executive, Chris Jankowski. One person, David Polyansky, attended the meeting as a super PAC official but later became the deputy campaign manager.Then there were the lawyers, patched in by phone to make sure the conversation did not veer into illegality. Federal law prohibits campaigns and super PACs from privately coordinating strategy but technically, at that moment, there was no formal Ron DeSantis presidential campaign. A goal of the April 6 gathering, which has not previously been reported, was to establish what the DeSantis team called “commander’s intent” — a broad vision of responsibilities in the battle to come.The close ties between Mr. DeSantis’s campaign and an allied super PAC, Never Back Down, have prompted a watchdog group to file a complaint claiming the relationship has violated campaign finance laws.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesThe two sides even exchanged printed memos about hypothetical divisions of labor in a would-be 2024 primary. The upshot: The campaign would focus on events in the early states, and the super PAC would organize March contests, and invest in an unprecedented $100 million ground operation across the map. The super PAC was also expected by the DeSantis team to raise huge sums from small donations online, and direct them to the campaign. That program would go on to raise less than $1 million.The close ties between Mr. DeSantis’s campaign and Never Back Down have already prompted a formal complaint from a watchdog group that accuses the relationship of being a “textbook example” of coordination that is illegal under campaign finance laws.In late May, Mr. DeSantis formally entered the race in a glitch-plagued Twitter announcement that came to symbolize his struggles. Relations with the super PAC were soon just as troubled.In Tallahassee, the campaign team could not understand why the super PAC was positioning itself so prominently in news stories. When Mr. Roe said in late June that “New Hampshire is where campaigns go to die,” it left the campaign leadership aghast.How could the super PAC publicly write off a state they had planned to compete in?In early July, the campaign pushed back, writing donors a memo that essentially demanded an advertising blitz in New Hampshire. “We will not dedicate resources to Super Tuesday that slow our momentum in New Hampshire,” the memo read.Now it was the super PAC side that was confused. Weren’t they supposed to focus on Super Tuesday? In the encrypted chat that top Never Back Down officials used to communicate, Mr. Roe tapped out a pointed question: Are we going to do what they say, or do what’s right?Mr. Roe was the super PAC’s chief strategist. But he did not have unfettered control.In an unusual arrangement, the super PAC’s operations were closely overseen by a five-person board populated by DeSantis loyalists with limited presidential experience, including Mr. DeSantis’s university classmate (Scott Wagner), his former chief of staff (Adrian Lukis) and his old U.S. Navy roommate (Adam Laxalt).Over the objections of some super PAC strategists who warned it was a waste of cash, Never Back Down went back on the airwaves in New Hampshire, just as the campaign had demanded.Mr. DeSantis in Londonderry, N.H., in August. Earlier in the summer, the campaign leadership was dismayed when the chief strategist of Never Back Down said, “New Hampshire is where campaigns go to die.”Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesIt was one example of the influence that Never Back Down’s board exerted over an array of issues, according to people with direct knowledge of the dynamics, including when television ads should run, where the ads should run, how much should be spent and what the ads should say. But the board also oversaw seemingly picayune decisions, such as directing the super PAC to procure not one but two branded buses for Mr. DeSantis to use on campaign trips.Never Back Down officials did not necessarily know or understand the origin of such specific demands. The directives were often relayed by Mr. Wagner, a Yale classmate who is close to Mr. DeSantis, with assurances that the moves he recommended would be well received by the governor, according to a person with knowledge of the comments.Mr. Wagner declined to answer specific questions, saying in a statement, “Never Back Down has built a massive ground game with a robust infrastructure that allows us to deliver the governor’s record and his vision to voters around the country.”Why certain companies were used was a source of confusion for some in Mr. DeSantis’s world.In May, super PAC officials were directed to use Accelevents Inc. for online event ticketing. Never Back Down paid Accelevents $200,000 on May 2, federal records show; one week later, the DeSantis campaign paid Accelevents $200,000. No other federal committees have paid the firm since 2018.Among the murkiest aspects of the expanded DeSantis world has been two nonprofit entities, Building America’s Future and Faithful and Strong. The former has been led previously by Ms. Peck, while the latter gives spending authority to Mr. Wagner, according to people familiar with both. Money was sent from the Faithful and Strong group to Building America’s Future; that group worked with a digital firm called IMGE, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. That firm, in turn, has connections to Phil Cox, a top 2022 DeSantis official, and Ethan Eilon, a 2024 deputy campaign manager for Mr. DeSantis, and is a vendor for the campaign. The Washington Post reported earlier on those connections. Both groups became potential places to park some laid off staffers over the summer, according to the person with knowledge of the matter.Mr. Wagner clashed in particular with Mr. Roe. In one episode over the summer, during a discussion about television ad-buying, Mr. Wagner asked what “a point” was when it came to television buying, a common industry measurement about how many viewers see an ad.A person close to the board said allies of Mr. Roe were engaged in “revisionist history” to protect their own reputations. The person said Mr. Wagner had been objecting to the lack of volume of ads being aired — the same frustration brewing inside the campaign. When Mr. DeSantis gathered some of his top donors for a mountainside retreat in Park City, Utah, in late July, two months after his campaign had kicked off, the campaign itself was in dire financial straits. He had just endured two rounds of layoffs, and a number of DeSantis donors and supporters there thought that Ms. Peck — who oversaw the overzealous campaign expansion and who closely held the direness of the situation — should be forced out.Ms. Peck and her allies suspected that the super PAC, which had sent its own contingent to the resort, including Mr. Polyansky, the pollster Chris Wilson and Mr. Jankowski, was behind the push to replace her.By the end of the weekend, Ms. Peck appeared to believe she was safe in her position when two super PAC board members, Mr. Wagner and Mr. Lukis, walked Mr. Jankowski through the lodge to a room where she was waiting to meet with him.Ms. Peck was removed as campaign manager just days later, though she stayed on as chief strategist. Her replacement, James Uthmeier, had served as Mr. DeSantis’s chief of staff in the governor’s office but had never worked on a campaign. The choice underscored how Mr. DeSantis valued loyalty over experience.Frayed nerves, tensions and a boiling pointBeating Mr. Trump was always going to require a candidate with extraordinary talents. But Mr. DeSantis has hardly generated his own momentum on the campaign trail.In speaking with voters, the governor reverts to a word-salad of acronyms — D.E.I., COLA, C.R.T. — and rushes through the moments when crowds burst into applause. He delivers a stump speech filled with conservative red meat but has not shown the empathic instinct to make deeper connections. Over the summer, when a 15-year-old Iowa girl who has depression asked Mr. DeSantis if her mental health issues would prevent her from serving in the military, he interrupted her question to make a joke about her age.Mr. DeSantis at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines in August. While his stump speech is filled with conservative red meat, he has not shown an empathic instinct with voters.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAnd at a town hall in New Hampshire this month, a DeSantis supporter named Stephen Scaer, 66, asked about protecting the First Amendment rights of those opposed to transgender rights. A four-minute response never got to the heart of the matter, so Mr. Scaer had to follow up, pointedly informing the governor that he hadn’t answered.“He lacks charisma,” Mr. Scaer said in an interview later. “He just doesn’t have that.”If the great promise of the DeSantis candidacy was Trump without the baggage, Stuart Stevens, a top strategist on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, said that what Republicans got instead was “Ted Cruz without the personality.”“There was a superficial impression that DeSantis was in the mode of big-state governors who had won Republican nominations and been successful — Reagan, Bush, Romney — but DeSantis is a very different sort of creature,” Mr. Stevens said. “These were positive, expansive, optimistic figures. DeSantis is not.”Meanwhile, the DeSantis campaign and super PAC have been at loggerheads over advertising strategy for months.Campaign officials were frustrated this fall that the super PAC was spending at levels they believed would be insufficient to sway voters, and then grew especially frustrated when Never Back Down slowed its attacks on Ms. Haley over China. AdImpact records show Never Back Down’s biggest week of spending to date in Iowa came last June — nowhere near the election.But by early fall, the super PAC that had been given $82.5 million from Mr. DeSantis’s old state account and a $20 million check in March from top DeSantis donors was nonetheless facing a cash shortfall. Whether because of donors drying up, picking up more costs from campaign events, the door-knocking push or summer advertising that proved ill-advised, Mr. Roe told officials, including those on the board, in early October that they could need as much as much as $20 million in cutbacks. The board members, leery of another slew of bad headlines, initially deferred.Some of the money was saved by not running digital ads. Never Back Down has paid for only a single Facebook ad, in South Carolina, since late September and nothing on Google or YouTube since the end of October, maddening the campaign team.Outside an appearance by Mr. DeSantis in Harlan, Iowa, in August. By early fall, Never Back Down faced a cash shortfall, and drastically limited its digital advertising.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesBy November, it came to a breaking point. A new super PAC, Fight Right, with a board of three other DeSantis insiders in Florida, was formed. Never Back Down’s board seeded it with an initial $1 million — an unusual decision that helped spur the recent upheaval.Mr. Jankowksi resigned. Another board member objected. Mr. Laxalt departed. A new chief executive was promoted — then fired. Mr. Wagner publicly attacked the three fired officials, all Roe deputies, for misconduct, and then revised his statement after being contacted by a lawyer for the fired employees, according to The Washington Post. Then Mr. Roe resigned.Now, Mr. Cox, a top strategist for Mr. DeSantis’s 2022 re-election campaign, has returned as a senior adviser at Never Back Down. At the start of the year, Mr. Cox had advised the DeSantis team against bringing in Mr. Roe, but briefly joined the super PAC anyway only to exit in the spring.One of Mr. Cox’s early acts, according to a person familiar with the matter, has been to audit the super PAC’s finances and operations. More

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DeSantis Faces F.E.C. Complaint Over His Campaign’s Ties With Super PAC
by Aurelia Butler 18 December 2023, 20:56
The Florida governor has confronted scrutiny for offloading many of his campaign’s operations to an allied super PAC, which has in recent weeks been rocked by staff upheaval.A campaign watchdog group filed a complaint on Monday with the Federal Election Commission against the campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and a super PAC backing his presidential bid, accusing them of a “textbook example” of illegal campaign coordination.In its complaint, the Campaign Legal Center argued that the super PAC, Never Back Down, had effectively served as Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, detailing work it has done like providing private air travel, bankrolling a costly ground game in early nominating states, providing debate strategies and hosting events on the road. In turn, Mr. DeSantis and his wife, the group says, provided guidance about messaging to Never Back Down.The complaint relies largely on news reports, in The New York Times and elsewhere, that for months have described Never Back Down’s extraordinary role in Mr. DeSantis’s candidacy. In recent weeks, the super PAC’s leadership has been roiled by concerns about advertising messaging and the legality of its close ties with the campaign, setting off a series of high-profile departures.“This baseless complaint is just another example of how the left is terrified of Ron DeSantis and will stoop to anything to stop him,” said Andrew Romeo, communications director for Mr. DeSantis’s campaign. “The F.E.C. has made clear they won’t take action based upon unverified rumors and innuendo, and that’s the false information this politically motivated complaint is based on.”Mr. DeSantis said on Monday that the upheaval at the deep-pocketed Never Back Down was “not a distraction for me.”Speaking to reporters after an event at a factory in Adel, Iowa, Mr. DeSantis said he didn’t have any thoughts on the weekend resignation of Jeff Roe, the influential chief strategist at Never Back Down.“I’m not involved in any of that,” he said. “As you guys know, it’s a separate entity and so, this stuff just happens and it’s not in my purview.”Mr. DeSantis has said he is the drama-free candidate, in comparison to former President Donald J. Trump. But the chaos at Never Back Down has undercut his narrative. When Mr. DeSantis addressed reporters after his Monday event, half of the questions were about Mr. Roe’s departure.For months, Never Back Down has been plagued by disagreements over its strategy and direction, as it became clear that former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina was threatening to usurp Mr. DeSantis’s position as the leading Republican alternative to Mr. Trump, who maintains a dominant lead in early state polls. Allies of Mr. DeSantis had wanted Never Back Down to focus more on its canvassing and voter turnout operation, and less on television advertisements.The complaint to the F.E.C. sets off a chain of events: Mr. DeSantis and his campaign have 15 days to respond to the complaint, after which the F.E.C.’s general counsel will review the case and make a recommendation to the six-member commission.The F.E.C., divided evenly between Democratic and Republican members, often deadlocks on questions of whether campaigns have broken the law. A spokeswoman for the F.E.C. said the commission would not comment on potential enforcement matters.While the backroom drama will probably go unnoticed by many voters, the chaos at Never Back Down is expected to be a cause for concern for Republican megadonors, who are increasingly looking to support Ms. Haley.The Campaign Legal Center has filed four complaints with the F.E.C. in connection with Mr. DeSantis and Never Back Down, including one accusing the PAC of violating the ban on “soft” money in federal elections. The group has also accused Mr. Trump and a committee backing him of violating the soft money ban, and has accused a super PAC backing former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey of accepting illegal contributions. More
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With His Super PAC in Disarray, DeSantis Aims to Stay on Offense
by Aurelia Butler 18 December 2023, 01:08
The Florida governor kept his focus trained on his opponents, even as Never Back Down, the group aligned with the governor, lost another key leader.A day after Ron DeSantis’s political operation suffered another major setback — the departure of a chief strategist — the Florida governor ignored the internal turmoil at an event in Iowa and did not take questions from reporters. Perhaps there just wasn’t much left to say.The group, Never Back Down — a super PAC formed to help Mr. DeSantis take on Donald J. Trump and serve as a powerful shadow campaign with a huge war chest and an influential political team — had lost another key player, the sixth senior leader to depart in recent weeks.In the months since it was founded, the super PAC has burned through tens of millions of dollars and changed its mission and strategy without much success. Four weeks before the first nominating contests in Iowa, it now faces questions about whether what remains is enough to have an impact, without much time to refocus or rebuild.So instead, Mr. DeSantis and his allies sought to go on offense against his rivals for the Republican nomination — most notably Mr. Trump, who is cruising in Iowa, and former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who is challenging him most directly — something he has struggled to do on the debate stage.At a packed coffee shop on Sunday in Oskaloosa, Iowa, Mr. DeSantis assured voters that he would bolster the country’s military and said that, in contrast to Mr. Trump, his leadership was “not about entertainment.”While Mr. DeSantis has sought to project strength and competence on the campaign trail, behind-the-scenes infighting at Never Back Down has frequently overshadowed his efforts.The group, which had amassed $130 million to support his candidacy, was supposed to be a difference maker. Instead, it has sometimes been a distraction, even as it works to build a formidable get-out-the-vote operation in the early nominating states.The departure on Saturday of the strategist, Jeff Roe, an influential political consultant who seeded Never Back Down with allies from his firm, Axiom, followed the loss of the group’s first chief executive, Chris Jankowski, just before Thanksgiving. Mr. Jankowski’s replacement, Kristin Davison, was fired in early December, and Never Back Down’s chairman, Adam Laxalt, a longtime friend of Mr. DeSantis, also stepped down this month, as two other senior staff members were fired.Never Back Down is now in an uncertain place. The group has quickly burned through cash and its new chairman and interim chief executive, Scott Wagner, is a Miami lawyer and close college friend of Mr. DeSantis, rather than a seasoned political operative, although he has been a member of the group’s board. In a post on X, Mr. Roe seemed to place the blame for his resignation on negative comments Mr. Wagner made in a Washington Post article about the fired employees.Meanwhile, another group of DeSantis loyalists has created a new super PAC, Fight Right, that has been running advertisements against Ms. Haley, who has caught up with or surpassed Mr. DeSantis in many polls. The group’s latest ad referred to Ms. Haley as “Tricky Nikki,” accusing her of pushing “the woke corporate agenda” on immigration. The ad was the latest sign that Mr. DeSantis, who has predicted victory in Iowa over Mr. Trump, has instead found himself in a two-front war, battling Ms. Haley for anti-Trump voters while simultaneously trying to wrest Trump supporters from the former president.Never Back Down, or N.B.D., had previously handled advertising, but Mr. DeSantis’s campaign — which is not legally allowed to coordinate with the group — suggested that it would focus on turning out voters.“We have full confidence in the N.B.D. ground game and field operation, which is second to none,” Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said in a statement on Sunday. “There is a stellar team in place and we appreciate their independent efforts to fight for Ron DeSantis.”A spokeswoman for Never Back Down did not respond to a request for comment.Instead of addressing the recent tumult, Mr. DeSantis sharpened his criticism of Ms. Haley and continued to attack Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis has recently urged voters to question why Ms. Haley has not given a firm answer about whether she would accept a role as Mr. Trump’s vice president, should he offer it after winning the Republican nomination. The implication is that Ms. Haley is aligning herself with Mr. Trump and attacking Mr. DeSantis on his behalf, rather than seeking the nomination herself. On Saturday, the DeSantis campaign sent out an email proclaiming that the governor was “Not Running to Be Anything Else.”“She owes you an answer to this,” Mr. DeSantis told the audience at a town hall in Concord, N.H., on Friday. It was a line of attack he repeated at another event later that night.Mr. DeSantis also pointed out that Mr. Trump had not ruled out selecting Ms. Haley during a recent radio interview. “Right now I’m not even thinking about that,” the former president had said when asked about the possibility. “I’ve always gotten along well with Nikki,” he added, but cautioned it was “unlikely” he would pick Ms. Haley. (For his part, Mr. DeSantis reiterated in New Hampshire that he would not run on Mr. Trump’s ticket, saying he could accomplish more as governor than vice president.)Ms. Haley has poured cold water on the charge without directly answering it. At a stop this month in Sioux City, Iowa, a voter asked if she would serve as Mr. Trump’s vice president. “I’ve never played for second,” she responded. (A spokeswoman for her campaign, Olivia Perez-Cubas, said Mr. DeSantis would “say anything to try to salvage his sinking ship of a campaign.”)On Sunday in Oskaloosa, Mr. DeSantis did not repeat his criticism. But one of his allies, Mark Chelgren, a former state senator in Iowa, opened the event by excoriating Mr. Trump as “self-serving” for denying his 2020 election loss.“The reality was, the week prior to absentee ballots going out, he had a debate with Joe Biden, and they both looked immature, selfish and petty,” Mr. Chelgren told voters. “That is why Donald Trump lost the last election.”As for Mr. Roe and the turmoil with Never Back Down, most voters said they were more concerned with policy differences between candidates rather than political infighting.Jordan Padgett, an undecided voter, said he had not even heard of Never Back Down. “I know the movie, great movie,” he said, referring to the 2008 action film by the same name.But Shari Dayton, who is supporting Mr. DeSantis, said the fact that the governor’s PAC seemed to be in disarray could affect how she votes in January’s caucuses.Hearing the news of the organization’s travails, her eyes widened. “I will have to look into that,” she said. “That’s interesting.”Shane Goldmacher More
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Jeff Roe, Top Strategist for Star-Crossed DeSantis Super PAC, Resigns
by Aurelia Butler 17 December 2023, 05:00
Mr. Roe, who helped lead Never Back Down, the super PAC behind the Florida governor’s presidential campaign, resigned Saturday, the latest shake-up in the group.Jeff Roe, the chief strategist for the leading super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential bid, resigned on Saturday night, the latest and perhaps most significant departure from the group, which has been consumed by turmoil in recent weeks.Since the day before Thanksgiving, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, which is called Never Back Down, has seen the resignation of one chief executive and one board chairman; the firing of a second chief executive, along with two other top officials; and now the late-night quitting of Mr. Roe. All have come after intense infighting and finger-pointing as Mr. DeSantis has slipped in the polls.“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Mr. Roe wrote in a statement he posted on X on Saturday night. The news of Mr. Roe’s resignation was first reported by The Washington Post.His decision to quit followed comments from the new chairman of the super PAC’s board, Scott Wagner, a DeSantis loyalist and appointee in Florida. Mr. Wagner had explained to The Washington Post why the previous chief executive and two others — all of whom had worked for Mr. Roe — had been fired.Mr. Wagner accused them of “mismanagement and conduct issues” as well as “numerous unauthorized leaks.” The Post reported that a lawyer for those employees contacted Mr. Wagner, who then revised his statement to add hedges to those accusations.“I cannot in good conscience stay affiliated with Never Back Down given the statements in The Washington Post,” Mr. Roe wrote in a statement. He said he still hoped Mr. DeSantis would be the next president and praised the Never Back Down team as “political warriors.”Mr. Wagner did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.From the start, Never Back Down has been something of a Frankenstein’s monster in its composition, with Mr. Roe and some of his top lieutenants forced to coexist with a decision-making board comprised primarily of longtime friends and loyalists of Mr. DeSantis. The arrangement has raised questions about how closely the campaign and the super PAC have adhered to rules barring coordination.Former President Donald J. Trump, who was in Las Vegas for a U.F.C. match and who has routinely mocked Mr. Roe privately, celebrated the departure in a post on his social-media site, Truth Social. “Jeff Roe is out — GAME OVER for DeSanctimonious,” he wrote.The future of internal operations at Never Back Down, which had raised more than $130 million as of July, is unclear. Mr. Roe’s allies hold many of the most important positions in the group, and his company, Axiom, has helped staff early state efforts for the super PAC. Whether they all remain in place is unclear.Word that Mr. Roe was departing the super PAC began to spread shortly before 8 p.m. on Saturday. But Mr. Roe and several people connected to Never Back Down did not respond to multiple messages seeking confirmation. Mr. Roe ultimately delivered his news to The Washington Post and posted it on X.Mr. Roe had long ago aggravated Mr. DeSantis with unwanted headlines, among them a New York Times story about a memo narrating debate strategy for the candidate before the first primary debate that was posted on his company’s website, and then taken down after The Times learned of it. The campaign found the memo’s existence embarrassing.Later, at the end of August, Mr. Roe was secretly recorded at a meeting with donors pitching them for tens of millions of dollars, as well as saying that Mr. DeSantis needed to beat Mr. Trump over the following 60 days.The Trump campaign has seized on the “60 days” comment, referring to it in an often vicious daily email as Mr. Roe’s “kiss of death.” That 60-day period has passed, with Mr. DeSantis still well behind the former president in the polls.Never Back Down has been hobbled by infighting for weeks, as senior staff members quit or were fired. Mr. DeSantis and his team had been unhappy with the group’s operations, particularly its focus on television advertising, and they had signaled that they wanted it to work more substantially on getting out the vote.Tensions reached a breaking point in November when another super PAC, Fight Right, was formed by a trio of DeSantis loyalists. The board of Never Back Down directed $1 million to that group, and, soon after, the initial chief executive, Chris Jankowski, resigned, followed by the resignation of the board chairman, Adam Laxalt.The person named as Mr. Jankowski’s replacement, Kristin Davison, was then fired, along with two other top officials.Mr. DeSantis has since met with prospective donors for Fight Right, and his campaign manager wrote a memo that embraced the group as the preferred entity to do its political advertising. The new super PAC’s first ad attacked Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina by invoking past comments she had made about Hillary Clinton — a line of attack that the campaign had just prominently featured in its own anti-Haley materials.Although Mr. DeSantis entered the race as the leading challenger to Mr. Trump, his campaign has sputtered in recent months. Ms. Haley has now equaled or surpassed Mr. DeSantis in many early state polls.The constant drama at the super PAC has infuriated some campaign staff members, who see it as a needless, constant distraction. The campaign itself was once the source of that drama, undergoing mass layoffs and seeing the elevation of a campaign manager who had never worked on a campaign. More
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The Head of Ron DeSantis’s Never Back Down Super PAC Resigns
by Aurelia Butler 22 November 2023, 23:13
Chris Jankowski, the chief executive of the Never Back Down super PAC, stepped down as internal disputes among supporters of Ron DeSantis intensified.Gov. Ron DeSantis’s political orbit confronted fresh upheaval on the eve of Thanksgiving as the chief executive of the super PAC that has effectively taken over his presidential campaign resigned after days of infighting among DeSantis allies over strategy, financing and how to blunt the momentum of one of his rivals, Nikki Haley.That chief executive, Chris Jankowski, sent a resignation note on Wednesday to the board of Never Back Down, which has been the main pro-DeSantis super PAC. The resignation was effective immediately. In a statement from Mr. Jankowski issued by the group, he described his differences with them as “well beyond a difference of strategic opinion.”Never Back Down, which had amassed $130 million over the summer, has played a critical role in supporting Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Jankowski’s departure caps days of internal tensions within the group over the next steps in their Republican primary race against the front-runner, Donald J. Trump, and comes seven weeks before the pivotal Iowa caucuses in January.Presidential campaigns are legally barred from coordinating with super PACs. But the DeSantis campaign and Never Back Down have repeatedly pressed the boundaries of what super PACs usually do.Never Back Down has been paying for some of the candidate’s travel and striving to build a field operation across the country and in three of the early-voting states. Mr. DeSantis, who has lost significant ground in polling against Mr. Trump since before he became a candidate, routinely appears at fund-raisers coordinated by the super PAC and has traveled across Iowa on a super PAC-funded bus attending super PAC events as a “special guest.”Mr. DeSantis has a long history throughout his political career of cycling through different teams, a fact that people who have worked for him have attributed to his micromanaging style.Chris Jankowski, the chief executive of Never Back Down who resigned on Wednesday, in 2014.Steve Helber/Associated PressIn the statement from Mr. Jankowski provided by a Never Back Down spokeswoman, he said, “Never Back Down’s main goal and sole focus has been to elect Gov. Ron DeSantis as president. Given the current environment it has become untenable for me to deliver on the shared goal and that goes well beyond a difference of strategic opinion. For the future of our country I support and pray Ron DeSantis is our 47th president.”In the past several weeks, allies of Mr. DeSantis and his wife have repeatedly complained about ads that Never Back Down ran attacking his closest rival in the primary, Ms. Haley, in connection with China. His allies have questioned the messaging and depth of the ad-buying by the super PAC, according to two people briefed on the matter. A third said some allies believed Mr. DeSantis was being blamed by voters for the negative spots.Since they came into existence nearly 15 years ago, super PACs have traditionally handled negative messaging and advertising against a candidate’s rival. But some DeSantis allies have come to believe that his own super PAC is too closely connected to him in the eyes of voters, and that Never Back Down’s work is a reason he is struggling in the polls. Campaign officials, meanwhile, have privately been critical of the group for running negative ads.Some of the tensions flared last week at a strategy meeting held by Never Back Down at its Atlanta offices. The group’s main strategist, Jeff Roe, and a board member, Scott Wagner, who is a college friend of Mr. DeSantis, had a heated argument during a discussion about money, according to people briefed on the matter.Mr. Roe and Mr. Wagner declined to comment on the dispute, which was first reported by NBC News.One of the issues discussed by Never Back Down last week involved the transfer of $1 million to a new entity, Fight Right, which was set up by close allies of Mr. DeSantis, to broadcast its own spots attacking Ms. Haley.Some members of Never Back Down — including Ken Cuccinelli, one of its original officials — expressed concern about how the group was handling the $1 million transfer. In an email to his colleagues, described by a person familiar with its content, Mr. Cuccinelli wrote, “The manner in which the Haley hit and its funding appears to be proceeding is exceedingly objectionable to me.” In later emails, another Never Back Down official indicated that the group had been given the sign-off to send the $1 million, and it went ahead, the person said.The new Fight Right group was created by three people with close ties to Mr. DeSantis: David Dewhirst, a lawyer who worked in the governor’s office; Scott Ross, a Tallahassee lobbyist close to Mr. DeSantis; and Jeff Aaron, a Florida lawyer and DeSantis appointee.In a statement sent by Fight Right on Tuesday, Mr. Dewhirst said the group would “join the fight with the premier DeSantis Super PAC, Never Back Down, to achieve a DeSantis victory.”With the governor unhappy with some of the old super PAC’s ads, some allies see the new group as more closely aligned with his current campaign manager, James Uthmeier, according to two people briefed on the matter. Mr. DeSantis picked Mr. Uthmeier to replace his original campaign manager, Generra Peck, after a midsummer shake-up.The DeSantis campaign adamantly denied any involvement from Mr. Uthmeier. Coordinating strategy between outside groups and campaigns is not allowed under federal law.“The assertion that James has anything to do with the formulation of or the strategy being pursued by an outside entity is absurd and categorically false,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis.A person familiar with the matter said Never Back Down officials held a previously scheduled briefing call with donors on Wednesday, during which Fight Right was described as analogous to a subsidiary. The person said the group’s officials — including Mr. Cuccinelli — suggested the only money going to Fight Right would be transfers from Never Back Down.But the new entity was welcomed by the DeSantis campaign in general. “We are excited to see even more backers stepping up to support Ron DeSantis’s candidacy,” Mr. Romeo said.Mr. Jankowski — a longtime political adviser to Leonard Leo, one of the most influential conservatives in legal circles in the country — was the architect of a 2010 Republican program known as Redmap, short for the Redistricting Majority Project, which helped conservatives achieve gains in redistricting efforts that lasted a decade.Jonathan Swan More
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DeSantis Super PAC’s Urgent Plea to Donors: ‘We Need 50 Million Bucks’
by Aurelia Butler 1 September 2023, 02:45
In an audio recording made just before the first G.O.P. debate, the super PAC’s chief strategist disparaged rivals and described an expensive attempt to thwart Donald Trump in Iowa.Hours before the Republican Party’s first presidential debate, the chief strategist for the super PAC that has effectively taken over Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign met with donors in Milwaukee.“Now let me tell you a secret — don’t leak this,” the strategist, Jeff Roe, told the donors last Wednesday, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times. “We need to do this now. We’re making a move now.”Then Mr. Roe made a bold sales pitch: “The day after Labor Day we’re launching and we need your help to stay up and go hard the rest of the way. We need 50 million bucks.”With urgency in his voice, Mr. Roe told the donors he required much of the $50 million in the next month before the second G.O.P. debate on Sept. 27. He said he needed $5 million a month just to sustain his Iowa operations. And he said Mr. DeSantis needed to beat Donald J. Trump in “the next 60 days” and separate from all of his other rivals “now.”The audio revealed that the people running the DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, are placing big bets now in the hope that donors will cover them later. And it underscored just how steep a task the group confronts as it heads into the fall with its candidate far behind Mr. Trump in the polls, a campaign that is low on cash and a growing recognition that a Trump victory in Iowa could accelerate the end of the Republican race.In his meeting with the donors — a portion of which was reported on earlier Thursday by CNN — Mr. Roe made a cutting assessment of much of the Republican field competing against Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, Mr. Roe said, was deemed nice by voters but not seen as presidential. Nikki Haley, he added, was “not actually a lovely person” and also viewed as unpresidential. He mocked former Vice President Mike Pence, recalling the fly that landed on his head during his only debate with his ultimate successor, Kamala Harris, in 2020. And Mr. Roe said that Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the nomination by a wide margin, was certain to lose the general election and drag down other Republicans on the ballot.While Mr. Roe predicted multiple paths to victory ahead of Super Tuesday in early March, it was his plaintive warnings about when the race would be “moving” that made clear he sees Mr. DeSantis’s chances as resting on winning Iowa.In addition to being the top strategist for Never Back Down, Mr. Roe runs Axiom Strategies, the highest-grossing consulting firm in Republican politics. He is comfortable with asking candidates and their donors to part with large sums of cash, and made light of doing so at the meeting.“Now the good news is that we have all the money we need in this room,” Mr. Roe told the donors. “The bad news is it’s still in your wallet.”Even so, his request for a quick $50 million was an audacious ask given that Never Back Down has already taken $82.5 million out of Mr. DeSantis’s state political committee, raised an additional nearly $50 million and spent nearly $34 million through the end of June, according to federal filings.There are clear signs the super PAC is shifting its spending: It is ending its highly promoted door-knocking program to sway voters in Nevada, one of the early states, as well as in some Super Tuesday states, a development first reported by NBC News on Thursday.Mr. Roe leaned heavily on the donors to give more money and quickly — telling them he would meet them in the T.S.A. line at the airport to collect their checks.“This doesn’t run on, you know, fumes,” Mr. Roe told the donors. “And so we’re going to go spend this money right now, betting that our donors won’t let us down. And I’ve been let down by donors a lot. And I’ve already lost once to Trump and we can’t do it again.”That loss happened in 2016, when Mr. Roe ran the presidential primary campaign of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who came closer than any other candidate to toppling Mr. Trump.For his 2024 rematch against Mr. Trump, Mr. Roe and his colleagues at Never Back Down are trying something that has never been done before at this scale in American politics: They are running almost every aspect of the DeSantis presidential effort out of a group that is barred by campaign finance laws from coordinating strategy with either Mr. DeSantis or his campaign team.Super PACs are allowed to raise unlimited sums but because of the prohibition against coordination they are usually used as a piggy bank to buy advertising. Everything else that’s part of a modern presidential campaign — from events, to bus tours, to the labor intensive business of calling voters and knocking on their doors — is usually handled by the campaign. But because the DeSantis campaign has relatively little cash and the super PAC has had plenty, Never Back Down has taken over all of those functions.The unusual arrangement has necessitated an awkward tap dance around campaign finance laws. Mr. DeSantis insists he is technically separate from this super PAC even as he travels around on a bus funded by the super PAC and even as he attends his own events as a “special guest” of the super PAC.In July, Mr. DeSantis laid off more than a third of his campaign staff. Donors had slowed giving as he slid in the polls and as his first campaign manager, Generra Peck, spent early and aggressively. The campaign’s cash crunch has meant that the health of Never Back Down is more important to Mr. DeSantis’s fortunes than the structure of his own campaign.Officials with Never Back Down and the DeSantis campaign declined to comment.In the presentation to donors last Wednesday, Mr. Roe described several data points about how the super PAC has helped collect commitments from caucusgoers in Iowa to support Mr. DeSantis on Jan. 15.While Mr. Roe trashed most public polling, he suggested that the Des Moines Register poll this month showing Mr. Trump at 42 percent and Mr. DeSantis at 19 percent was “right along the path where our numbers show.”Then, he said, there was a drop-off to a lower tier of candidates.“Tim Scott is a wonderful human being, a nice man. He’s a moderate, a squish, but he’s a nice guy. He doesn’t have a name I.D. problem. He has a not-being-viewed-presidential problem,” Mr. Roe said.A spokesman for the Scott campaign, Matt Gorman, declined to comment.“Nikki Haley is not actually a lovely person,” Mr. Roe continued in the recording, adding that she has higher name identification. Still, he said, she has a “not-being-viewed-presidential problem.”A spokeswoman for the Haley campaign, Chaney Denton, responded by email, writing, “Lol, if anyone ever thought that, her debate performance put it to rest.”As the donors prepared to watch the first debate, Mr. Roe forecast who might attack Mr. DeSantis or anyone else. To watch “Mike Pence attack somebody, that’d be kind of weird,” he said, adding, “He might get his fly out to kind of help him.”A spokesman for Mr. Pence did not respond to an email seeking comment.Mr. Roe said that Mr. Trump, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment, had a lower ceiling of support than the 42 percent backing him in the Des Moines Register poll. He claimed the real number was 37 percent and that Mr. DeSantis still needed to chase that core Trump bloc for its votes. He said that an additional 37 percent liked Mr. Trump but wanted to move on from him.“We want to show them we’re a better option — never back down, give it to the elite, like be who we are,” he said in the recording. “But the 37 percent that like Trump but want someone new, we’ve got to give them what they want, and that’s policies. Show them what the governor has done. These folks — we’ve got to get them what they need, which is common sense, which is durability and stability and a leader, vision, optics, family, Casey.”His mention of Mr. DeSantis’s wife, Casey, recalls a strategy memo that Mr. Roe wrote ahead of the debate in which he implored the candidate to “invoke a personal anecdote story about family, kids, Casey, showing emotion.” The memo was posted on the website of Mr. Roe’s firm to get around laws restricting how super PACs and candidates can coordinate. A person not affiliated with the DeSantis operation alerted The New York Times to its existence. Mr. DeSantis was furious about the memo, according to people with knowledge of his reaction.In the presentation to donors last Wednesday, Mr. Roe described Mr. Trump as a surefire loser who cannot win the four states he said the race would come down to.“It’s Arizona, and it’s Georgia and it’s Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And we have Senate races there that cannot overcome him on the ballot,” Mr. Roe said, though he later clarified that there was no Senate race in Georgia, according to a person familiar with the comments. “We’re going to lose them. This is not in dispute. We have to beat him and we’ve got to beat him in the next 60 days and we’ve got to beat everybody else nipping at our heels. Now. And we’ve got to separate further — now.” More
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Trump Could Clinch the Nomination Before the G.O.P. Knows if He’s a Felon
by Aurelia Butler 30 August 2023, 09:03
The federal election interference case — one of four — is set to start just before Super Tuesday and a cascade of consequential primaries.By the time Donald J. Trump is sitting at his federal trial on charges of criminally conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, he may have already secured enough delegates to effectively clinch the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.The former president’s trial is scheduled to start March 4, by which point five states are expected to have held nominating contests. The next day, March 5, is Super Tuesday, when 15 states, including delegate-rich California and Texas, plan to hold votes that will determine if any Trump challenger has enough political oxygen to remain a viable alternative.Primaries in Florida, Ohio and Illinois come two weeks later. Florida and Ohio will be the first winner-take-all contests, in which the top vote-getter statewide seizes all of the delegates rather than splitting them proportionally. Winner-take-all primaries have historically turbocharged the front-runner’s path to the presidential nomination. Mr. Trump’s federal trial, if it proceeds on its current timeline, won’t be close to finished by then.The collision course between the Republican Party’s calendar and Mr. Trump’s trial schedule is emblematic of one of the most unusual nominating contests in American history. It is a Trump-dominated clash that will define not only the course of the 2024 presidential primary but potentially the future direction of the party in an eventual post-Trump era.“It’s a front-runner set of rules now,” said Clayton Henson, who manages the ballot access and delegate selection process for the Trump campaign, which has been instrumental in rewriting the rules to benefit him.Mr. Trump has complained the March 4 start date of the trial amounts to “election interference” and cited Super Tuesday, but it is likely to have a greater effect on his ability to campaign for primaries in subsequent weeks. About 60 percent of the delegates will be awarded from contests after Super Tuesday.Generally, defendants are required to be present in the courtroom at their trials. After preliminary matters such as jury selection, prosecutors in Mr. Trump’s election case have estimated they will need about four to six weeks to present their case, after which defense lawyers will have an opportunity to call additional witnesses.That timeline also means it is likely that a majority of the delegates will have been awarded before a jury determines Mr. Trump’s fate.If Mr. Trump holds his dominant polling advantage throughout the primaries but then a jury transforms him into a convicted felon, any forces within the G.O.P. that would want to use that development to stop him would have one last opportunity to block his nomination — the same end-run around voters that officials tried at the party convention in 2016.That possibility would almost certainly lead to a schism between Trump loyalists and what used to be called the party’s establishment, an unpleasant reality in which defeating Mr. Trump could doom Republicans to a long cycle of electoral defeats.“Given what’s happening on the legal front, state parties need to think about what options they’re giving themselves” to allow delegates flexibility at the party’s national convention, said Bill Palatucci, a Republican National Committee member from New Jersey who advises the super PAC supporting Chris Christie and who opposes Mr. Trump.Republican state parties have until Oct. 1 to submit their formal delegate allocation rules to the national committee.“All this is happening so quickly, it’s unprecedented, and so as states formulate what their rules are going to be,” Mr. Palatucci added, “everybody’s got a whole new set of circumstances to consider.”There are no signs that the party’s leadership is contemplating using Mr. Trump’s legal troubles against him. The chairwoman of the R.N.C., Ronna McDaniel, has defended Mr. Trump in numerous media appearances and the committee has been raising money by telling online donors that the former president is the victim of a political prosecution.The chairwoman of the R.N.C., Ronna McDaniel, has defended Mr. Trump.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesOn Monday night, just hours after Judge Tanya S. Chutkan set the March trial date, one of the main organs of the Republican establishment, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, sounded the alarm.“Mr. Trump might have the G.O.P. nomination sewn up before a verdict arrives and voters learn whether he’s a convicted felon,” the Journal editors wrote. “This would certainly delight Democrats.”The renewed panic about the possibility of nominating a convicted felon recalls the 2016 effort to block Mr. Trump’s nomination after he had won a clear delegate majority in the primaries.Then, a group of Republican delegates loyal to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas tried to muster support from one-fourth of the convention’s rules committee, a body that meets in the weeks before the national convention, to throw open the nominating contest to the full roster of more than 2,000 delegates. Had they succeeded, the renegade delegates still would have needed a majority vote of all the delegates in order to seize the nomination from Mr. Trump.Now, short of a full capitulation from Mr. Trump, removing him as the nominee at the convention after he has secured enough delegates remains an extreme long shot. A surrender by Mr. Trump seems highly unlikely given that advisers have said he views getting re-elected — and taking command of the pardon power plus control over the Justice Department — as his best insurance policy. Despite Mr. Trump’s claims, however, it is not clear that a president can pardon himself, so he might be on safer legal ground if some other Republican secured the nomination, became president and then pardoned him.The Trump campaign is taking no chances on a contested convention. His team is far more experienced and professional than it was in 2016, when Mr. Cruz’s forces organized state party conventions in Louisiana, Colorado and elsewhere to elect Cruz loyalists as convention rules committee delegates. Mr. Trump has a tighter grip on the party’s grass-roots supporters than he did in 2016, and his aides — including Mr. Henson, Brian Jack, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita — have been working for months behind the scenes to ensure he will have loyal delegates in state parties across the country, according to people with direct knowledge of their efforts.Mr. Trump’s team also has a stronger hold on state parties themselves, after three advisers — Bill Stepien, Justin Clark and Nick Trainer — worked to consolidate support within them ahead of the 2020 election to stave off primary challenges to Mr. Trump. Many of those changes, which favor Mr. Trump, remain in place.Mr. Trump himself has gotten involved deep in the weeds of convention politics. He has awarded endorsements not just for state party bosses but for leaders of the two largest county Republican parties in Nevada — the sort of local officials who will have significant influence in choosing which grass-roots leaders will represent their states as convention delegates next July in Milwaukee.This loyalty has already delivered results for Mr. Trump’s campaign. This month, the Nevada Republican Party quietly announced it would not share political data or coordinate with super PACs — a blow to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has outsourced much of his campaign’s political operation to the super PAC Never Back Down. Never Back Down is led by Jeff Roe, the architect of Mr. Cruz’s 2016 campaign.Mr. LaCivita said in a statement that “no degree of trickery or gamesmanship” and “no amount of editorials in The Wall Street Journal” would stop Mr. Trump’s nomination at the convention.“There’s been much more attention to detail and focus on those small things,” he added, “that if not attended to early on can lead to big headaches.”Mr. Trump’s aides, like, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, center, have been working for months behind the scenes to ensure he will have loyal delegates in state parties across the country.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesThe mere possibility of a chaotic contested national political convention — a dream of political observers who have known nothing but scripted, made-for-television quadrennial gatherings since 1980 — may inspire well-funded Trump rivals to remain in the race just in case delegates decide it would be foolhardy to anoint a convicted felon as their party’s standard-bearer for the general election.Mr. Trump has vowed to appeal the March 4 trial date in the election case. That is not legally permitted: Generally, grievances over issues like whether a defense team had adequate time to prepare must wait to be taken up on appeal after any guilty verdict.Still, it is possible that his legal team will ask an appeals court or the Supreme Court to intervene before the trial using a long-shot method known as a petition for a writ of mandamus. Higher courts tend to be reluctant to grant such requests to disrupt the normal judicial process and have set a very high bar that must be met before they will consider doing so.Even if a jury acquits Mr. Trump in the federal election case — or one or more holdout jurors produce a mistrial — there are three other cases that could potentially lead to him being a convicted criminal by the time of the convention.He is facing bookkeeping fraud charges in New York, where a trial is set to begin March 25, although it is now might be pushed back. He is set to go on trial in Florida in May on federal charges related to his hoarding of sensitive national-security documents after leaving office. And he has been charged in another 2020 election case in Georgia, for which a trial date has not yet been set.Ben Ginsberg, who for decades was among the Republican Party’s top election lawyers before breaking with the party over Mr. Trump in 2020, said no amount of delegate machinations would be likely to stop a Trump nomination should he win enough early nominating contests.“If he wins Iowa and New Hampshire,” Mr. Ginsberg said, “I think it’s all over anyway.” More
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Defend Trump and ‘Hammer’ Ramaswamy: DeSantis Allies Reveal Debate Strategy
by Aurelia Butler 17 August 2023, 15:07
Hundreds of pages of blunt advice, memos and internal polling were posted online by the main super PAC backing the Florida governor, offering an extraordinary glimpse into his operation’s thinking.Ron DeSantis needs “to take a sledgehammer” to Vivek Ramaswamy, the political newcomer who is rising in the polls. He should “defend Donald Trump” when Chris Christie inevitably attacks the former president. And he needs to “attack Joe Biden and the media” no less than three to five times.A firm associated with the super PAC that has effectively taken over Mr. DeSantis’s presidential campaign posted online hundreds of pages of blunt advice, research memos and internal polling in early nominating states to guide the Florida governor ahead of the high-stakes Republican presidential debate next Wednesday in Milwaukee.The trove of documents provides an extraordinary glimpse into the thinking of the DeSantis operation about a debate the candidate’s advisers see as crucial.“There are four basic must-dos,” one of the memos urges Mr. DeSantis, whom the document refers to as “GRD.”“1. Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times. 2. State GRD’s positive vision 2-3 times. 3. Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response. 4. Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.”The documents were posted this week on the website of Axiom Strategies, the company owned by Jeff Roe, the chief strategist of Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down.The New York Times was alerted to the existence of the documents by a person not connected to the DeSantis campaign or the super PAC. After The Times reached out to Never Back Down for comment on Thursday, the group removed from the website a key memo summarizing the suggested strategy for the debate.Super PACs are barred by law from strategizing in private with political campaigns. To avoid running afoul of those rules, it is not unusual for the outside groups to post polling documents in the open, albeit in an obscure corner of the internet where insiders know to look.Posting such documents online is risky — the news media or rivals can discover them, and the advice can prove embarrassing. But super PACs often decide the risk is justified to convey what they consider crucial nonpublic information to the candidate without violating the law.But it is unusual, as appears to be the case, for a super PAC, or a consulting firm working for it, to post documents on its own website — and in such expansive detail, down to the exact estimate of turnout in the Iowa caucuses (“now 216,561”), and including one New Hampshire poll with more than 400 pages of detailed findings.The DeSantis super PAC and campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Notably missing from the debate materials is a document focused on Mr. Trump. The former president, who has said he is unlikely to participate in the debate, is also not among the candidates whose previous attacks against Mr. DeSantis were highlighted by the super PAC, in a preview of what he might expect onstage.Key among the documents is one entitled “Debate Memo,” dated Aug. 15, which cynically describes how Mr. DeSantis — who has been battered by critical coverage and has struggled to capture attention in the face of Mr. Trump’s indictments — could wring the most favorable media attention from the debate.Addressed simply to “interested parties,” the memo describes “Roger Ailes’ Orchestra Pit Theory,” quoting the now-deceased Fox News executive and political strategist’s well-known maxim that a candidate who lays out a comprehensive plan on foreign policy will draw less coverage than the one who accidentally falls off the debate stage.To that end, the memo lists “potential Orchestra Pit Moments,” beginning with one drama-making opportunity, complete with a recommendation for a Trump-style insult: “Take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswamy: ‘Fake Vivek’ Or ‘Vivek the Fake.’”Related documents — one runs nearly 5,000 words across 17 pages — show that the DeSantis operation advises portraying Mr. Ramaswamy as an inauthentic conservative.Internal polling contained in the trove of documents shows Mr. Ramaswamy surging in New Hampshire, which may have inspired the attack line. Mr. Ramaswamy was at 1 percent in New Hampshire in April but rose to 11 percent in an early August survey, according to the documents.A key memo from Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC describes in cynical fashion how he could wring the most favorable media attention from the debate.Christopher (KS) Smith for The New York TimesThe debate-prep memo also urges Mr. DeSantis to “defend Trump when Chris Christie attacks him,” with a specific suggestion for an attack line accusing Mr. Christie, the former New Jersey governor, of appealing mainly to Democrats: “Trump isn’t here, so let’s just leave him alone. He’s too weak to defend himself here. We’re all running against him. I don’t think we want to join forces with someone on this stage who’s auditioning for a show on MSNBC.”The strategy memo also highlights one of Mr. DeSantis’s long-running political vulnerabilities, his reputation for awkwardness or aloofness on the campaign trail, by suggesting that he “invoke a personal anecdote story about family, kids, Casey, showing emotion.”Mr. DeSantis is keenly aware of his vulnerability in this regard: Leaked videos of his preparation for a 2018 debate for governor, obtained by ABC News, included an adviser telling him that as a reminder to himself, he should write in capital letters at the top of his notepad: “LIKABLE.” Mr. DeSantis, then a congressman, nodded.The documents published on the Axiom Strategies website also address the delicate way in which Mr. DeSantis should handle Mr. Trump, who remains by far the most popular figure in the Republican Party. They suggest saying that Mr. Trump’s time has passed, and that Mr. DeSantis should be seen as “carrying the torch” for the movement he inspired.The strategy memo provides Mr. DeSantis with an elaborate script with which to position himself in relation to Mr. Trump.He could say that Mr. Trump was “a breath of fresh air and the first president to tell the elite where to shove it,” then add that the former president “was attacked all the time, provoked attacks all the time, and it was nonstop.”Mr. DeSantis could then argue that Mr. Trump, who has now been indicted four times, faces “so many distractions that it’s almost impossible for him to focus on moving the country forward,” and that “this election is too important. We need someone that can fight for you instead of fighting for himself.”Mr. DeSantis, the memo urges him to conclude, is the only candidate who can keep the Trump movement going.The memo then supplies a YouTube link as “inspiration.” It’s an ad produced by Win It Back PAC, a group linked to the anti-tax organization the Club for Growth that has been spending heavily to run the ad in Iowa. The spot features a man describing himself as a disillusioned former Trump voter, expressing concerns about Mr. Trump’s electability — effectively creating a permission structure for voters to move on from him.Taken together, the documents reveal the remarkable extent to which the financially struggling DeSantis campaign is relying upon the resources of his super PAC, which raised $130 million in the first half of the year. The outside group is paying for research on Mr. DeSantis’s rivals, strategic insights and polling — all traditionally the work of campaigns themselves.The documents include detailed research showing how each candidate expected to be on the debate stage has been attacking Mr. DeSantis. They even include a dossier on the low-polling governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, warning that he might attack Mr. DeSantis over the “Book Ban Hoax” — a reference to a law the Florida governor signed last year that allows parents to challenge books they deem inappropriate for school libraries.Some of the lengthiest documents in the trove center on Mr. Ramaswamy, Mr. Christie and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina — underscoring the idea that they are the candidates that the super PAC is most focused on. .Mr. Ramaswamy, who has been creeping close to Mr. DeSantis in some public polling, is the only candidate about whom two separate documents described vulnerabilities that Mr. DeSantis could attack. One lays out Mr. Ramaswamy’s past statements about abortion, immigration policy and Covid masks, among a long list of subjects. The other is a lengthy opposition-research document on his positions and past actions.The polling, conducted by WPA Intelligence in early August, shows Mr. DeSantis in second place in New Hampshire, with 16 percent support, and Mr. Trump ahead but at only 34 percent. Mr. Ramaswamy was in third with 11 percent and Mr. Christie fourth with 8 percent.But there were other warning signs for Mr. DeSantis in the private poll. His net favorability among Republicans — the difference between the percentage of voters who view him favorably and the percentage who view him unfavorably — had dropped from 65 percentage points in March to 26 points in August. Mr. Scott was seen far more favorably, with a 49-point net favorability.Importantly, Mr. DeSantis has also declined in terms of serving as Republican voters’ second choice, dropping from 32 percent in March to 17 percent in August, tied with both Mr. Scott and Mr. Ramaswamy.The internal polling included in the documents about Iowa was less detailed, but appeared to show Mr. Trump leading in the state with 40 percent support, while Mr. DeSantis was at 19 percent and Mr. Scott at 12 percent. More
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How DeSantis Allies Plan to Beat Trump in the 2024 Presidential Election
by Aurelia Butler 24 May 2023, 11:46
As the Florida governor prepares to enter the 2024 race, his allies are building an army of organizers to flood the states with the first nominating contests.A key political group supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential run is preparing a $100 million voter-outreach push so big it plans to knock on the door of every possible DeSantis voter at least four times in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and five times in the kickoff Iowa caucuses.The effort is part of an on-the-ground organizing operation that intends to hire more than 2,600 field organizers by Labor Day, an extraordinary number of people for even the best-funded campaigns.Top officials with the pro-DeSantis group, a super PAC called Never Back Down, provided their most detailed account yet of their battle plan to aid Mr. DeSantis, whom they believe they can sell as the only candidate to take on — and win — the cultural fights that are definitional for the Republican Party in 2024.The group said it expected to have an overall budget of at least $200 million, including more than $80 million to be transferred from an old DeSantis state political account, for the daunting task of vaulting the Florida governor past former President Donald J. Trump, who has established himself as the dominant early front-runner.Mr. DeSantis is set to enter the presidential race on Wednesday in a live audio conversation on Twitter, and the super PAC’s enormous cash reserves are expected to be among the few advantages that Mr. DeSantis has in the race.The group is already taking on many tasks often reserved for the campaign itself: securing endorsements in early primary states, sending mailers, organizing on campuses, running television ads, raising small donations for the campaign in an escrow account and working behind the scenes to build crowds for the governor’s events. Hiring is underway in 18 states and officials said plans were in the works to assemble various pro-DeSantis coalitions, such as for voters who are veterans or those focused on issues like abortion, guns or agriculture.“No one has ever contemplated the scale of this organization or operation, let alone done it,” said Chris Jankowski, the group’s chief executive. “This has just never even been dreamed up.”In Iowa, the group has opened a boot camp on the outskirts of Des Moines, giving the facility the code name “Fort Benning,” after the old Army training outpost, with 189 graduates of an eight-day training program the first wave of an organizing army to follow. Door knocking begins on Wednesday in New Hampshire.The endeavor echoes the “Camp Cruz” that Senator Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign set up near Des Moines.As Mr. DeSantis prepared for his first campaign events as a declared candidate, his allies for the first time detailed the show of force they are mustering to advance their strategy for prying away supporters of Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis at a round-table discussion last week in New Hampshire. Before his 2024 campaign is official, he has been making routine stops on the campaign trail.Sophie Park for The New York TimesAt the helm of the DeSantis super PAC is Jeff Roe, a veteran Republican strategist who was Mr. Cruz’s campaign manager in 2016. In an interview, Mr. Roe described an ambitious political apparatus whose 2,600 field organizers by the fall would be roughly double the peak of Senator Bernie Sanders’s entire 2020 primary campaign staff.Mr. Roe also previewed some of the contrasts that Never Back Down planned to draw with Mr. Trump. He argued that Mr. Trump had shied away from key fights that motivate the Republican base and on which Mr. DeSantis has led, including on L.G.B.T.Q. issues, schools and taking on corporate America.“How do you beat Trump?” Mr. Roe said, pointing to Mr. DeSantis’s assertiveness on those cultural issues. “Well, you beat Trump by beating Trump. And where Ron DeSantis has beaten Trump is by doing what Republican voters want him to do the most.”Mr. DeSantis has steadily lost ground so far in 2023 and is trailing Mr. Trump nationally in polls by an average of 30 percentage points. And as the governor’s standing has diminished, more candidates have jumped into the race, an ever-expanding field that could make the sheer math even harder for Mr. DeSantis to topple a former president with a significant base of loyalists.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, mocked the group as “Always Back Down,” calling it “a clown show of epic proportions.”Mr. DeSantis at a speech last week in Orlando. “Ultimately, politics is a team sport,” he told donors recently.Saul Martinez for The New York Times“If DeSantis runs his campaign the same way as his super PAC, he’ll be in for a rude awakening,” Mr. Cheung said.In framing the 2024 race, Mr. Roe acknowledged that Mr. Trump has been “the leader of a movement.” But, in Mr. Roe’s telling, it is Mr. DeSantis alone who “has the opportunity to be the leader of the party and the movement.”“That is a key difference,” he said. “I don’t believe people fundamentally understand that you can be a leader of a movement and not be the leader of your party. Ron DeSantis has the ability to be both. Trump does not.”That is a line that Mr. DeSantis himself articulated last week in a private call with donors that was organized by Never Back Down. He played up the money he has raised for state parties, including in New Hampshire.“Ultimately, politics is a team sport,” Mr. DeSantis told donors, adding an oblique shot at Mr. Trump. “You know, there’s some that kind of raise money just for themselves.”Republican primary voters, Mr. Roe said, see the battle against the progressive left as an existential fight. He argues that Mr. DeSantis, not Mr. Trump, has led on three touchstone issues in that fight: taking on corporate America, engaging in what is being taught in schools and confronting shifting norms and acceptance around sexual orientation and transgender medical care.The governor’s clash with Disney touches on all three: battling a big corporation over what began as a fight over classroom discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary schools. Mr. Trump sees the Disney battle as futile and has recently cheered on the company as it hit back against Mr. DeSantis.Mr. Roe added that the intensity of the threat that Republicans perceive to their way of life is what makes electability a more salient issue for the party in 2024, and what makes Mr. DeSantis’s ability to fight those fights and still win in Florida so appealing.“That is a manifest separation between the two candidates,” he said.Unlike a candidate’s campaign committee, which has to abide by strict caps for each donor, there are no limits on how much a super PAC is allowed to raise.And this one begins with unmatched financial firepower. Never Back Down is expected to begin with around $120 million — $40 million it says it already raised and $80 million from Mr. DeSantis’s old state political committee — a sum that is equal to what Jeb Bush’s super PAC spent in total in 2016.But there are several legal impediments to this financial freedom. The people who run super PACs are prohibited from discussing strategy with the candidate or the campaign staff. Of course, if Mr. DeSantis disagrees with any super PAC decisions, he can always say so publicly and urge them to change course.As a result, the biggest super PACs — entities that have existed for just the last roughly 12 years — have often essentially become independent vehicles to buy expensive television advertising. That model, however, is extremely inefficient. When the election nears, the airwaves are cluttered and candidates are guaranteed, by law, far lower rates than super PACs. It is one reason the pro-DeSantis group plans to spend so heavily on its field program, officials said, citing studies that show personal voter contact has far greater return on investment.Hiring is underway in 18 states and officials said plans were in the works to assemble various pro-DeSantis coalitions, such as for voters who are veterans or those focused on issues like abortion, guns or agriculture.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times“That’s not to say that we won’t do TV, it’s that it’s not all that we’ll do,” said Kristin Davison, the chief operating officer of Never Back Down. “We understand that in the first four states that peer-to-peer, neighbor-to-neighbor conversation and conversion is going to be extremely important.”Strategists with Never Back Down have been consulting lawyers and studying precedent to see exactly how far the group can stretch the legal bounds of what tasks it can perform without tripping any legal wires. One overlooked twist in election law is that super PAC advisers can move to the campaign, so it is possible entire departments at Never Back Down could eventually join the DeSantis campaign.The hand-in-glove efforts were on display during Mr. DeSantis’s recent trip to Iowa. After Mr. Trump canceled a rally near Des Moines, the governor decided he wanted to swoop in for a last-minute event in the area. But it wasn’t the governor’s staff that scrambled to bring people to the location but employees of the super PAC, who, working with Mr. DeSantis’s team, sent a flurry of texts and calls to assemble a crowd at Jethro’s BBQ that evening.“On like two hours’ notice, at some local pizza joint or barbecue joint, we got like 200 people to show up,” Mr. DeSantis raved to donors on the call, which The New York Times listened to.Despite Mr. DeSantis’s professed aversion to political consultants, particularly those who work around Washington, and his history of asking questions about what people who work for him are making, his team has anointed one of the Republican Party’s most famous consultants to oversee Never Back Down.Mr. Roe has emerged as an unusual lightning rod, among DeSantis allies and rivals alike. His aggressive approach to both campaigning and business development was the subject of a recent Washington Post article that detailed his firm’s efforts to vacuum up ever more revenue, including from its political clients.Mr. Trump himself obsesses over Mr. Roe, who is the only political consultant that he regularly talks about, according to people who have discussed the matter with the former president. Advisers so regularly feed him stories about the money spent on Mr. Roe’s losing campaigns that Mr. Trump has coined a nickname for him: “the kiss of death.”Never Back Down has already spent more than $10 million on pro-DeSantis television ads this spring. The early spending has been the subject of second-guessing from some DeSantis allies as it coincided with a drop in the polls. But Never Back Down advisers defended the ads as not just propping up Mr. DeSantis before he enters the race but as part of an enormous experiment — including mail, text messaging and control groups — to study what means of communicating works against Mr. Trump.Officials said voters were surveyed before and after in tens of thousands of interviews to determine the impact. More

Roe, Jeffrey B (1970- )

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