DeSantis Allies’ $200 Million Plan to Beat Trump
A major political group supporting Ron DeSantis’ presidential run is preparing a $100 million voter campaign so large it plans to knock on the door of every possible DeSantis voter at least four times in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and five times in the Iowa caucuses kickoff.
The effort is part of an on-the-ground organization that plans to employ more than 2,600 field organizers by Labor Day, an extraordinary number of people for even the best-funded campaigns.
Top officials of the pro-DeSantis group, a super-PAC called Never Back Down, gave their most detailed account yet of their battle plan to help Mr. DeSantis, whom they believe they can sell as the only candidate to take it on — and win — the cultural battles that will define the Republican Party in 2024.
The group said it expects to have a total budget of at least $200 million, including more than $80 million to be transferred from an old DeSantis state political account, for the daunting task of getting Florida’s governor past the former President Donald J. Trump, who has established himself as the dominant early frontrunner.
Mr. DeSantis will enter the presidential race on Wednesday in a live audio call on Twitter, and the super PAC’s huge cash reserves are expected to be one of the few advantages Mr. DeSantis in the race.
The group is already taking on many tasks often reserved for the campaign itself: securing statements of support in early primary states, sending mailings, organizing on campuses, running television commercials, collecting small campaign donations into an escrow account, and working behind the scenes to build crowds for the governor’s events. Renting is underway in 18 states and officials said plans were in the works to assemble several pro-DeSantis coalitions, for example for voters who are veterans or focus on issues such as abortion, guns or agriculture.
“No one has ever considered the size of this organization or operation, let alone done it,” said Chris Jankowski, the group’s CEO. “This is just never even dreamed.”
In Iowa, the group has opened a boot camp on the outskirts of Des Moines, giving the facility the code name “Fort Benning,” after the Army’s old training post, with 189 graduates of an eight-day training program to follow the first wave of an organizing army. . There’s a knock on the door in New Hampshire on Wednesday.
The endeavor mirrors the “Camp Cruz” Senator Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign established near Des Moines.
At the helm of the DeSantis super PAC is Jeff Roe, a seasoned Republican strategist who was then Mr. Cruz was. In an interview, Mr. Roe described an ambitious political apparatus whose 2,600 field organizers would be about double the 2020 peak of Senator Bernie Sanders’ entire campaign staff by the fall.
mr. Roe also previewed some of the contrasts Never Back Down planned to draw with Mr. Trump. He argued that Mr. Trump had moved away from key battles that motivate the Republican base that Mr. DeSantis has led, including over LGBTQ issues, schools and taking on corporate America.
“How do you beat Trump?” said Mr. Roe, noting Mr. DeSantis’ assertiveness on those cultural issues. “Well, you beat Trump by beating Trump. And where Ron DeSantis beat Trump is by doing what Republican voters most want him to do.”
DeSantis has been steadily losing ground through 2023 so far, trailing Mr Trump in polls by an average of 30 percentage points. And as the governor’s position has dwindled, more candidates have jumped into the race, an ever-expanding field that could make the sheer math even more difficult for Mr. DeSantis to overthrow a former president with a sizable loyalist base. cast.
Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesperson, derided the group as “Always Back Down”, calling it “a clown show of epic proportions”.
“If DeSantis runs his campaign the same way his super-PAC does, he’s going to get a rough wake up call,” said Mr. Cheung.
In drafting the 2024 race, Mr. Roe that mr. Trump was “the leader of a movement.” But according to Mr. Roe, it is only Mr. DeSantis who “has the chance to be the leader of the party and the movement.”
“That’s an important difference,” he said. “I don’t think people fundamentally understand that you can be a leader of a movement and not the leader of your party. Ron DeSantis has the ability to be both. not Trump.”
That’s a line Mr. DeSantis himself articulated last week in a private conversation with donors hosted by Never Back Down. He played off the money he raised for state parties, including in New Hampshire.
“At the end of the day, politics is a team sport,” Mr. DeSantis told donors, with an angled shot at Mr. Trump. “You know, there are those who raise money just for themselves.”
Republican primary voters, said Mr. Roe, see the fight against the progressive left as an existential struggle. He argues that Mr. DeSantis, not Mr. Trump, has been in charge of three touchstone issues in that battle: taking on corporate America, participating in what is taught in schools, and confronting shifting norms and acceptance around sexual orientation and medical care for transgender people.
The governor’s clash with Disney touches on all three: the battle against a major corporation over what began as an argument over classroom discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary schools. Mr. Trump sees the Disney battle as pointless and recently applauded the company when it hit back at Mr. DeSantis.
Mr. Roe added that the intensity of the threat Republicans perceive to their way of life makes electability a more glaring issue for the party in 2024, and what Mr. DeSantis’ ability to do that fighting and still winning in Florida makes it so attractive. .
“That’s a clear divide between the two candidates,” he said.
Unlike a candidate’s campaign committee, which must adhere to strict limits for each donor, there are no limits on how much a super-PAC can raise.
And this one starts with unparalleled financial firepower. Never Back Down is expected to start with about $120 million — $40 million it says it has already raised and $80 million from Mr. DeSantis’ longtime political committee — an amount equivalent to what Jeb’s super PAC Bush spent in total in 2016.
But there are several legal obstacles to this financial freedom. The people who run super PACs are not allowed to discuss strategy with the candidate or campaign staff. Of course, if Mr. DeSantis disagrees with super-PAC decisions, he can always say so publicly and urge them to change course.
As a result, the largest super-PACs – entities that have only existed for the last 12 years or so – have often become essentially independent vehicles to buy expensive television advertising. However, that model is extremely inefficient. As elections approach, the airwaves are congested and candidates are legally guaranteed far lower rates than super-PACs. It’s one of the reasons the pro-DeSantis group plans to spend so much money on its field program, officials said, citing studies showing face-to-face contact with voters has a much greater return on investment.
“That’s not to say we won’t do TV, it’s that it’s not all we’ll do,” said Kristin Davison, Never Back Down’s chief operating officer. “We understand that in the first four states, peer-to-peer, neighbor-to-neighbor conversation and conversion will be extremely important.”
Never Back Down strategists have consulted lawyers and studied precedents to see exactly how far the group can stretch the legal limits of the tasks it can perform without tripping over legal threads. An overlooked twist in the electoral law is that super-PAC advisers could move to the campaign, so it’s possible that entire chapters of Never Back Down could eventually join the DeSantis campaign.
The hand-in-glove efforts were on display during Mr. DeSantis’ recent trip to Iowa. After Mr. Trump canceled a rally near Des Moines, the governor decided he wanted to attend a last-minute event in the area. But it wasn’t the governor’s staff rushing to get people to the site, but super-PAC employees, who, in conjunction with Mr. DeSantis’ team, sent a deluge of texts and phone calls to gathering a crowd at Jethro’s BBQ.
“We got about 200 people to show up at a local pizzeria or barbecue joint about two hours in advance,” Mr. DeSantis told donors ecstatically during the call, which The New York Times listened to.
Despite Mr. DeSantis’ perceived distaste for political consultants, particularly those who work in Washington, and his history of asking questions about what people who work for him make, his team has appointed one of the Republican Party’s most famous advisers. to oversee Never Back Down. .
Mr. Roe has emerged as an unusual lightning rod, both among DeSanti’s allies and rivals. His aggressive approach to both campaigning and business development was the subject of a recent one Washington Post article that describes his company’s efforts to suck up more and more revenue, including from his political clients.
Mr. Trump is himself obsessed with Mr. Roe, the only political adviser he talks about regularly, according to people who have discussed the matter with the former president. Advisers tell him stories about the money spent on Mr. Roe’s losing campaigns so regularly that Mr. Trump has coined a nickname for him: “the kiss of death.”
Never Back Down has already spent more than $10 million on pro-DeSantis TV ads this spring. Some DeSantis allies questioned the early spending, as it coincided with a drop in polls. But Never Back Down advisers defended the ads not just as support for Mr. DeSantis before he entered the race, but as part of a massive experiment — including mail, text, and control groups — to examine which communication tools work against Mr. Trump.
Officials said voters were polled before and after in tens of thousands of interviews to determine the impact.