Ron DeSantis super PAC cuts back on door-knocking in several states
Mabinty Quarshie
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A super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R-FL) presidential campaign is easing back on door-knocking and field operations in four states, a departure from a once-ambitious strategy to shock and awe other campaigns.
Never Back Down has recently suspended its field operations in Nevada, California, North Carolina, and Texas, a source close to the group confirmed to the Washington Examiner. Outside of Nevada, the other three states have primaries on Super Tuesday.
TRUMP’S GOP SUPPORT HAS ONLY CLIMBED SINCE THE INDICTMENTS BEGAN
NBC News first reported the change in tactics on Thursday.
The suspensions are a stark departure for a super PAC that once aimed to spend $100 million for sweeping on-the-ground efforts to boost DeSantis in 18 states.
It also mirrors a tough summer for DeSantis’s presidential campaign, which faced multiple staff shakeups, resets, and public speculation from GOP donors that the governor may not have the capability to dethrone former President Donald Trump in the 2024 primary race.
A Trump super PAC gloated over the news by posting a pun on the group’s name. “N̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ Backs Down,” Make America Great Again Inc. wrote.
Never Back Down will focus on investing in ground operations in three early nominating states, Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, which will be crucial to DeSantis winning if his campaign is to remain viable. The group’s spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner in a statement that investing in states such as Nevada while Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald actively supports Trump was not a wise use of resources.
“Nevada is heading to a lawsuit. And with the way that Trump puppet executive director, or the party chair, is conducting that caucus/primary, primary/caucus routine that he’s doing,” said Erin Perrine, Never Back Down’s communications director. “When you have that kind of uncertainty about how the election’s going to be conducted, that becomes a pretty unstable environment to be investing the kind of resources that we’re investing.”
Nevada’s Republican Party is holding a caucus separate from the state’s law calling for a primary election next year, which some say will benefit Trump. The state’s GOP will use the results of the caucus to determine which candidate will receive the state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention next summer.
“A similar situation in California, where they eliminated the California Republicans’ say in their own primary as well as making grassroots involvement impossible,” Perrine said. “Now the central committee will have a convention and a vote at the end of September which could alter that. But that was a Trump-inspired rigging as well.”
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California’s GOP changed its rules for delegate allocation during its primary in late July, a move the Trump campaign supported and which makes the state less competitive for other candidates. The state’s new rule awards the candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote in the primary all of its 169 delegates, the most of any other state. If no candidate surpasses 50% then delegates are proportionally awarded based on a statewide vote.
“And so with neither state having a fair process, the door knockers that were in Nevada and California, we decided to make them kind of refocus into the first three,” Perrine said of the group’s refocusing.
DeSantis has consistently trailed Trump in most national and state polling often by more than 40 percentage points. But his campaign has stressed that he will win the Iowa caucuses next year and is attempting to visit all 99 of the state’s counties.