Ron DeSantis Promises Victory in Iowa Despite PAC Turmoil

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rounded out his tour of each of Iowa’s 99 counties this weekend with a promise that he will emerge victorious in the Hawkeye State’s caucuses come January, despite trailing the current GOP frontrunner by nearly 30 points. 

“We’re going to win Iowa,” the Florida governor said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday. I think it’s going to help propel us to the nomination.” 

Outperforming expectations in Iowa has long been high on the DeSantis campaign’s priorities, especially since he scored an endorsement from the state’s popular governor, Kim Reynolds, who had previously said she would stay out of the race.

The campaign hopes that a victory or close-second outcome would pierce the veil of inevitability that has shrouded the GOP primaries thus far, with former president Donald Trump maintaining a massive polling lead. 

But DeSantis’ pronouncement comes as Never Back Down, the political action committee that has played an outsized role in his campaign, has undergone several rounds of staff shake-ups and significant internal turmoil. The latest, reported Saturday evening by Politico, is the firing of CEO Kristin Davidson, who was let go just nine days after the PAC’s previous CEO, Chris Jankowski, resigned following days of infighting. The PAC also fired a spokesperson, Erin Perrine, and another top official. Never Back Down’s chairman, former Nevada Senate candidate Adam Laxalt, announced he was stepping down from the board on Friday.

An internal email sent Saturday night named longtime DeSantis ally Scott Wagner as interim CEO. He’ll also replace Laxalt as chair of the board. Never Back Down spokesperson Jess Szymanski said the group still has “the most organized, advanced caucus operation of anyone in the 2024 primary field.”

The DeSantis campaign has reportedly grown frustrated with the ineffectiveness of Never Back Down’s TV advertising blitz. “The campaign doesn’t think [Never Back Down’s] current interim leadership should be within a mile of a TV budget,” one campaign official close to DeSantis told Politico. The PAC has plowed $16 million into advertising in Iowa alone.

Early last week, DeSantis campaign manager James Uthmeier wrote to donors, urging Never Back Down to focus on field operations in Iowa instead of advertising. Uthmeier also hinted that a newly formed pro-DeSantis PAC, Fight Right, should take over digital advertising. That division of campaign labor has started to take shape already, Politico reported Saturday.

DeSantis’ chief rival was also in Iowa this weekend for a big rally in Cedar Rapids, where he mocked the Florida governor. “We hit him very hard, and he’s been falling out of the air like a very seriously wounded bird,” Trump said of DeSantis.

“Ultimately,” DeSantis said Sunday, “Republican voters are going to have the choice of Donald Trump, which I think would make the election a referendum on him and a lot of the issues that he’s dealing with, or me, and that will be a referendum on Biden’s failures, on all the issues in the country that are affecting people.”