Trump also alienated the entire cohort of election consultants and strategists who can make enormous commissions buying ads etc. for a candidate. I don’t think Trump used any of them in 2016.
“election consultants and strategists who can make enormous commissions buying ads”
Those folks have an inherent conflict of interest—they will always want the candidate to fundraise and spend like crazy—creating an astroturf advertising campaign while they rake in the cash.
They will also be in direct conflict with all other parts of the campaign who consider advertising just one piece of an overall strategy.
This is campaign basics stuff—apparently DeSantis did not understand how the game was played—or was too weak to control the process.
(That said—the convoluted campaign laws force campaigns to pretend they don’t control some fundraising operations—so the lawyers are always whispering in your ear that you should not be micromanaging them.
The big picture “process” issues are tough—and need to be carefully thought out at the beginning—with no room for error.)
One further thought on how campaign election law has created a mess.
For those who know how to play bridge it is similar to the campaign election laws.
In bridge it violates the rules if you communicate with your partner—but if you want to cheat and win you need to figure out a sneaky way to communicate with your partner.
In campaign law the campaign and the political action committees are like bridge partners.
To continue the bridge analogy—well experienced bridge partners can become experts in bridge “conventions” which are ways they can use bids to communicate hidden messages.
Experienced campaigns develop a method of signaling between campaign and political action committees.
They better not get caught though—can be jail time if the scheme fails.