The head of Ron DeSantis’s mammoth super PAC privately admitted to spreading opposition stories on upstart candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, whose recent rise in the polls is threatening the Florida Governor’s increasingly tenuous hold on (a very distant) second place in the GOP primary race.
“Everything you read about him is from us,” Jeff Roe, who runs the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down political action committee, told a gathering of donors just before the first GOP primary debate in Milwaukee on August 23. “Every misstatement, every 360 he’s conducting or 180 that he is going through in life, is from our scrutiny and pressure. And so, he’s not going to go through that very well, and that will get worse for him.”
A recording of the comments, parts of which had previously been reported by CNN and The New York Times, was obtained by Politico and reported on Sunday.
The official DeSantis campaign has struggled to fundraise from small-dollar donors, and much of the day-to-day campaign activity has been overtaken by Never Back Down, even as super PACs are barred from explicitly coordinating with any campaign.
Roe will be launching a $50 million fundraising push following Labor Day, and told donors he hoped to raise the bulk of it before the second GOP debate on September 27, the Times previously reported.
“Now the good news is that we have all the money we need in this room,” Roe told the donors gathered in Milwaukee. “The bad news is it’s still in your wallet.”
“We’ve just been playing without pads, practicing without pads,” he said in the part of the recording reported by Politico Sunday.
The Ramaswamy campaign responded to the report Sunday morning. “When DeSantis’s Super Pac campaign, Chris Christie, the New York Times, MSNBC and the rest of the bipartisan establishment are all going after you at the same time, you know you’re right over the target,” Ramaswamy spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Politico. “America watched Vivek dominate the debate stage, it’s no wonder Never Back Down is pissing away another $20+ million after Labor Day.”
The campaign is laser-focused on the early primary states, added Roe. “Iowa is a real state for us because of its education — it’s a highly educated state — because of income, because of bible reading,” he said. “New Hampshire is a terrible state for Donald Trump. But he’s going to lose the first two states. We’re going to beat him in Iowa.”
Jack McCordick
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