A spokesman for Rod DeSantis' troubled presidential campaign has spoken out about a “media hit,” claiming they have privately admitted his race is almost over.
Support for the Florida governor has fallen from 35 percent to 12 percent in the battle for the Republican nomination as Donald Trump consolidated his clear lead in the Iowa caucuses, just three weeks away.
As DeSantis battles with Nikki Haley for second place in the polls, a campaign official said her job now is to “make the patient comfortable,” aides told The New York Times.
The newspaper spoke to a dozen people close to DeSantis' election efforts after a fall of unrest that saw open hostility between his campaign and supporters of the Never Back Down Super PAC.
“When you run against a former president, you have to be perfect and lucky,” one said.
“We were unlucky and were far from perfect.”
Strategist Stuart Stevens, who worked on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, said DeSantis seemed like “Ted Cruz without the personality.”
The governor's college colleague, Scott Wagner, has become the latest leader of DeSantis' backing super PAC Never Back Down after a spate of resignations and firings
Super PAC chief Chris Jankowski resigned in November, three months after helping oust campaign manager Generra Peck
The resignation of super PAC strategist Jeff Roe last week marked the end of a months-long bloodbath that also saw the firing of his campaign manager, two super pac executives and the chairman.
And some have pointed out that the governor prefers to work with his trusted Florida friends rather than seasoned campaign professionals.
Super PACs are supposed to maintain independent relationships with the candidates they support to comply with campaign finance laws, but DeSantis made sure he had three old friends overseeing Roe on the Never Back Down board.
Last month, Roe lashed out at one, the governor's college classmate Scott Wagner, reportedly telling him, “You've got a stick up your ass, Scott,” as they argued about the campaign burning through $100 million.
“Why don't you come and get it?” Wagner reportedly hit back when NBC reported that the two men “almost came to blows.”
That meeting led to the resignation of super PAC chief Chris Jankowski, who had helped oust campaign manager Generra Peck months earlier.
She was replaced by James Uthmeier, who had worked as DeSantis' chief of staff in the governor's office but had no campaign experience.
Wagner has since been promoted to chairman of the super PAC and is vigorously defending the governor.
“Never Back Down has built a tremendous ground game with a robust infrastructure that allows us to communicate the governor’s record and vision to voters across the country,” he told the Times.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is polling within touching distance of Donald Trump in New Hampshire and is battling DeSantis for second place in Iowa
Jeff Roe's departure as chief strategist for the Never Back Down super PAC on Dec. 16 was just the latest in a tumultuous year for the DeSantis campaign
But the super PAC abandoned $2.5 million in bookings for ads in Iowa and New Hampshire over the weekend amid claims it was sidelined by the governor's weak showing in the polls.
A new super PAC called Fight Right is now working on the governor's behalf but is struggling to attract donations, which surged at the time DeSantis was ahead in the polls.
In the meantime, the experts he rejected have lobbied Trump's campaign, bringing with them their insider knowledge of the governor's vulnerabilities
And some who remain told the newspaper about the missteps that have dogged the DeSantis campaign since it officially launched with a livestream on X, formerly Twitter, in late May.
Technical problems prevented many from tuning in, and while Peck bragged about “breaking the internet,” Trump countered with a one-word retort: ”DeSaster.”
The governor's early high profile made him a prime target for other candidates fearful of angering Trump's support base, and DeSantis attracted more negative publicity than all the others combined.
This also meant that things weren't easy for Trump's conservative media supporters.
“I used to think that in Republican primaries you could just do Fox News and talk on the radio and stuff like that,” he told conservative news host Steve Deace in October.
“And first of all, I don't think that's enough, but second of all, there's just the fact that our conservative media space, you know, doesn't necessarily promote conservatism.” They also have plans.
Never Back Down claimed to have knocked on two million doors by September, but nearly half were outside the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The governor's friend's outsized influence was blamed for the super PAC's biggest ad spending in Iowa in June, a full seven months before the caucus.
And the super PAC, whose mission was to attract a flood of contributions from small donors, has still received less than $1 million.
DeSantis is the only candidate to have spoken at caucuses in all 99 Iowa counties, but he struggled in the early televised debates.
And his bumbling public persona was exposed in the media spotlight, according to strategist Stuart Stevens, who worked on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, who said DeSantis seemed like “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 were successful – Reagan, Bush, Romney,” he told the newspaper.
“But DeSantis is a completely different kind of creature. These were positive, expansive, optimistic numbers. DeSantis is not.'
A poll last week showed DeSantis falling further behind Nikki Haley to third place in New Hampshire ahead of the Jan. 23 Republican primary in the Granite State
“DeSantis has been underestimated in every race he has entered and has always proven the doubters wrong,” his communications director Andrew Romeo said today
The governor's longtime pollster Ryan Tyson reportedly said the goal now is to “provide comfort to the patient,” but has since publicly denied that.
And the campaign's current communications director, Andrew Romeo, insisted that his candidate was simply the target of unfair media coverage.
“Another day, the same media struck based on unnamed sources with agendas,” he told the Times.
“While the media tried to declare this campaign dead in August, Ron DeSantis fought back and entered the home stretch in Iowa as the hardest-working candidate with the strongest ground game.”
“DeSantis has been underestimated in every race he has competed in and has always proven the doubters wrong – we are confident he will defy the odds again on January 15.”