Free Republic

Iowa was supposed to be make-or-break for Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor essentially moved his campaign there late last year, and Never Back Down, his allied super PAC, spent tens of millions of dollars knocking on doors in the state. “We’re going to win Iowa,” DeSantis declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Dec. 2. But in the week before the all-important caucuses, Scott Wagner, the recently installed head of the super PAC, was doing something that aides found puzzling: He was literally doing a puzzle. In the headquarters of Never Back Down in West Des Moines, Iowa, Wagner was,...

Jeff Roe, a top strategist for the main super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, announced his resignation from the group late Saturday — the latest in a string of departures from the organization.The pro-DeSantis group, Never Back Down, has been enveloped in turmoil in recent weeks. Two weeks ago, it fired three of its top officials, including the super PAC’s chief executive officer. The board chairman, former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, also left, as did the organization’s president, Chris Jankowski.Republican strategist Phil Cox, a longtime DeSantis ally and adviser, has stepped in to help steer the PAC in...

Concerns regarding the DeSantis campaign’s coordination with the pro-DeSantis Super PAC Never Back Down–which has come under scrutiny in recent months as DeSantis fails to make a dent in former President Donald Trump’s lead in the Republican primary race–are increasing.There have been reports of infighting within Never Back Down and tensions between the PAC, which has spent $43 million on ads this year, and the campaign as DeSantis has failed to make any dent at all in Trump’s lead since the governor’s May launch.A September post in Vanity Fair details how Never Back Down’s chief Jeff Roe and the DeSantis...

Leaders of Ron DeSantis' Never Back Down super PAC met privately last Tuesday to hash out a strategy for fighting Nikki Haley's rise. Instead, two of them nearly came to blows with each other. The infighting represents an escalation in the long-running war between Never Back Down's professional political operatives and DeSantis’ Tallahassee-based inner circle over who is to blame for the governor’s failure to compete effectively with frontrunner Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. And, after tempers flared at last week's meeting, three close DeSantis allies — David Dewhirst, Jeff Aaron and Scott Ross — launched a second super...

Ron DeSantis may have lost the White House by handing his social media operation over to clueless youngsters who offended both donors and voters, while being outwitted by Donald Trump. And analysts warned his faltering campaign may have been strangled at birth by inexperienced staffers given free rein to use Nazi imagery and faked photos of Trump kissing his chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci. Many were posted online by third-parties but they were made in the war room, according to two former aides as well as text messages reviewed by The New York Times. But the most notorious was a...

The G.O.P. contender’s campaign tried to take on Donald Trump’s online army. Now it just wants to end the meme wars. ---------------------------------- In early May, as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prepared to run for president, about a dozen right-wing social media influencers gathered at his pollster’s home for cocktails and a poolside buffet. The guests all had large followings or successful podcasts and were already fans of the governor. But Mr. DeSantis’s team wanted to turn them into a battalion of on-message surrogates who could tangle with Donald J. Trump and his supporters online. For some, however, the gathering...

Florida blogger and Ron DeSantis campaign influencer Chris Nelson was ejected from the Republican primary debate in Simi Valley, California after harassing Kari Lake and other debate guests. In the hours prior to the event, Nelson posted a series of videos to X (formerly Twitter) that show him shouting at Lake and others. In one video, he can be heard ranting about former President Donald Trump – suggesting his supporters intend to make him ‘Emperor of the United States.’Nelson has become a fairly regular figure among the DeSantis campaign’s online trolls, routinely attacking Trump supporters. Sources close to Nelson have...

Chris Wilson, Head of Data at Ron DeSantis’s Never Back Down super PAC, was fired and sued by his former employer, Qorvis Communications, which accused him and his wife of diverting profits by secretly billing clients directly, and stealing some 28,000 confidential files to help establish a rival firm. An arbitration concluded, in 2008, that Wilson had to pay the firm a sum of $366,037.72 for a breach of his contractual duty of loyalty:In its complaint, Qorvis alleged that Wilson, along with others, conspired to form their own business in the fall of 2003 and thereafter “proceeded to divert lucrative...

Bill Mitchell, a prominent pro-Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) online influencer, threatened to tank former President Donald Trump and help President Joe Biden in the general election.Mitchell took to Twitter to lay out his new “plan” to prevent Trump from winning the general election, should he win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.“Here’s the plan. If Trump keeps being a prick to DeSantis and wins the nomination, DeSantis supporters should organize to write in DeSantis in the General. We’ll vote straight red down ballot to make sure we control Congress to keep Biden in check for 4 more years,” Mitchell wrote....

Ron DeSantis has replaced his campaign manager Generra Peck, in what is the third major reshuffling of his operations, a campaign spokesperson and a person familiar with the move confirmed to POLITICO. Peck will be shifted to a role of chief strategist as part of the new order. Taking her place atop the campaign will be James Uthmeier, who has served as chief of staff in DeSantis’ governor’s office.

Generra Peck, DeSantis’ top aide, is “hanging by a thread,” said a DeSantis donor who is close to the campaign. “It is the chatter among donors, and it extends beyond the first rung of the bundler class. Money people are losing confidence quickly,” a DeSantis money-bundler said. “It’s time for that kind of change. It’s time for a shake-up at the top.” “Governor DeSantis and Casey very much support her. I wouldn’t say it’s never going to happen, but right now her job is safe,” the DeSantis ally said. Phil Cox, former exec director RGA returned to the inner circle...

Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign has fired roughly a dozen staffers — and more are expected in the coming weeks as he shakes up his big-money political operations after less than two months on the campaign trail. Those who were let go were described to NBC News by a source familiar as mid-level staffers across several departments whose departures were related to cutting costs. The exits come after the departures of David Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, veterans of DeSantis’ political orbit, which were first reported by Politico. DeSantis has $12 million in the bank, but of that $3 million can be...

A New York police detective shot and killed an unarmed man, whose hands, a witness said, were on the steering wheel of his Honda, after he had been pulled over early Thursday for cutting off two police trucks on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, the authorities said....The shooting, which occurred at 5:15 a.m., was the latest in a series of episodes in which police officers fatally shot or wounded civilians...A passenger in Mr. Polanco’s car, Diane Deferrari, said in a phone interview Thursday night that just before pulling the car over, officers appeared irate that Mr. Polanco had cut...