Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) has booted his presidential campaign manager as his poll numbers on both state and national surveys continue to drop like a rock tossed from the top of the Empire State Building, leaving his campaign in a steady state of decline. Such news means that the gap between DeSantis and Trump for the Republican Party nomination is getting wider and wider. And to be fair, it was already nigh on impossible for him to catch the former president before. Now it’s going to take a total miracle.
According to Breitbart News, the DeSantis campaign sent Generra Peck packing and brought James Uthmeier on board. Uthmeier formerly served as DeSantis’ chief of staff. While Peck has been removed as campaign manager, the campaign has moved her over to chief strategist.
The Messenger reported that Peck “quickly became the subject of criticism from DeSantis advisers and donors in mid-July after his presidential campaign stalled and money dried up.”
The disappointing performance of the DeSantis campaign in the polls, along with his current campaign finance situation, has had a negative impact on the governor’s presidential aspirations.
Back in July, NBC News got its hands on a DeSantis campaign memo that was labeled as a “confidential friends and family update.” In the memo, DeSantis’ campaign tried to reassure his donors by providing an outline for his plans to focus mostly on Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire, pushing Super Tuesday states to the side for now.
“Our focus group participants in the early states even say they don’t plan on making up their mind until they meet the candidates or watch them debate,” the memo went on to say, indicating that there would be more “cookout style, backyard activities” in both Iowa and the Granite State.
“From what we can tell, pro-DeSantis efforts are currently and will continue to run a robust effort in Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire, that includes paid media and field,” the memo said. “While Super Tuesday is critically important, we will not dedicate resources to Super Tuesday that slow our momentum in New Hampshire. We expect to revisit this investment in the Fall.”
Here’s more from Breitbart:
Weeks later, the DeSantis campaign laid off dozens of staff members in an attempt to streamline operations and boost the governor’s position in the polls. That move followed chatter and criticism over the composition of the DeSantis campaign’s donor base — namely, his lack of small dollar donors. Donald Trump Jr. is among those who noted that DeSantis’s small dollar donor base is “almost non-existent, making up 15 percent of his take.”
He also told Breitbart News in July that most of the money from DeSantis’s Super PAC is coming from Jeff Roe entities, adding that the “Never Trump billionaire donor movement” is behind DeSantis’s bid.
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“I think it’s pretty clear, as evidenced by the small-dollar donors — 15 percent of the entire take, right? So it’s all the billionaires, that’s who wants that because they want a president they can control,” Trump Jr. said in a discussion with Breitbart News.
“Despite the recent adjustments made to the campaign, donors remained unhappy,” Breitbart reported. “Robert Bigelow, the biggest individual donor supporting DeSantis, is among those, telling Reuters that he would withhold further support until changes were made in the campaign.”
“Not until I see that he’s able to generate more on his own. I’m already too big a percentage,” Bigelow said to Reuters, adding that “a lot of his donors are still on the fence.”
While all of this is happening, DeSantis continues to underperform in the polls. One such survey coming out of the state of New Hampshire shows that the Florida Republican has dropped down to single digits. He’s tied with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and that’s going to leave a mark on the old ego, isn’t it? Can someone get as unpopular as Christie and still have a chance at nabbing the nomination? It’s a pretty hard sale, that’s for sure.
This week’s Morning Consult survey has DeSantis hanging in the teens and falling 43 points behind the former president on a national scale. The Florida governor’s RealClearPolitics average has also taken a pretty severe hit, doing from an average of 23.7% at the start of summer to 15.7% in early August.
DeSantis’ decline accelerating in the RCP National Avg. Now down to 15.7%. pic.twitter.com/2biPmeTWhf
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) August 7, 2023
Trump spoke about DeSantis during a recent interview with Breitbart, saying, “he’s crashing badly. He’s got no personality. He just has no personality.”
I mean, I get what Trump’s saying, but is that why people are voting for him? Because of his personality? That’s terrifying. Should it not be based on a candidate’s policy platform and track record rather than how entertaining he is? Trump has some good stuff on his platform, and that’s why people should vote for him, not just because he has personality.
