TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign is planning a restart, top campaign officials said, with a significant change in messaging, events and media strategy.
Expect fewer big speeches and more handshakes at dinner parties and churches.
There will be more of a national focus than constant Florida references.
And the mainstream media may start to get more access.
In short, DeSantis will be running as an insurgent candidate rather than incumbent governor.
“Ron DeSantis has never been the darling or darling of the establishment, and he has always won for it. No one in this race has come under fire more and won than Governor DeSantis. He is ready to prove them wrong again. Buckle up,” DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck said.
The campaign files show that the DeSantis campaign needs to figure out how to make more money while spending less. It laid off about a dozen employees last week. Donors and allies are pushing for change. The poll numbers are stagnant. And rival Republican presidential candidates are smelling blood in the water.
“Absolutely low” is how a source who was present when employees were laid off called for morale these days.
“The entire campaign is on edge,” the person said. “I had never seen anything like it”.
The restart is remarkable for a candidate who was perhaps the most anticipated Republican candidate in the 2024 race. While DeSantis has held onto second place in the polls, he has been unable to close the gap on the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.
But the obstacles remain significant and it is not clear if it is too late to reverse the early setbacks. While some candidates have successfully turned around after rocky starts, the presidential campaign is littered with candidates who ultimately failed to regain momentum.
Simpler and more intimate campaign events
DeSantis’ campaign finance report showed some bright warning signs.
Although he raised more than $20 million from mid-May to the end of June, more than any other Republican presidential candidate, more than two-thirds of that money came from donors who gave the legal limit and cannot give again. He also spent about 40% of the proceeds, with 92 people on the payroll.
Other candidates, including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and even Trump, had higher spending rates than DeSantis. But with less cash in the bank ($12.2 million vs. Trump’s $22.5 million) and the large number of donors capped, solvency became a real question.
The full scope of the dire campaign financial picture was made clear to the team as a whole. Just after the June 30 end-of-quarter reporting deadline, two sources familiar with the situation said they asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share information on behalf of the campaign.
The campaign postponed paying some of its outstanding bills until the end of June, in part so its second-quarter financial report would show more money in the bank, according to the sources. It’s not an uncommon practice for campaigns running on a large reporting window, but it can hide a bigger problem.
DeSantis’ top aides acknowledge that the financial situation needs to be addressed. They plan to do this in part by reducing the costs of the governor’s events.
DeSantis won’t be traveling less, but his campaign appearances will start to get leaner and more intimate.
This week’s stop in Tega Cay, South Carolina served as the starting point, where it held a town hall-style event with a noticeably reduced security presence. According to figures provided by the campaign, the event cost a total of $940 but raised $1,600 in organic donations from attendees.
In the future, expect fewer podiums and stages, and more stops at Pizza Ranches, churches and VFW halls where DeSantis can speak directly to voters without large platforms or barricades blocking close contact.
“All DeSantis needs to make news and win this primary is a microphone and a crowd,” Peck said.
The campaign will also rely more heavily on “special guest” invitations from outside organizations as a way to cut costs for its own events, particularly those run by its more well-resourced counterparts at DeSantis’ professional super PAC, Never Back Down.
New communication strategy
DeSantis will also modify his message. Up to this point, much of his address to voters has focused on his accomplishments in Florida. But he will soon shift to a more national perspective, according to top campaign officials.
The candidate, already known as a culture warrior, will lean on an “us against the world” message in an effort to emerge as the insurgent fighter. The campaign intends to wear negative headlines as a badge of honor.
“Gov. DeSantis’ public service has been defined by being the underdog. Every time he’s been underappreciated, written off or fired, he’s proven his enemies wrong, from winning a stunning upset in his first congressional race, to beating Adam Putnam, a Tallahassee insider in 2018, to taking on COVID-entrenched bureaucracy,” Peck said.
At the same time, the campaign is opening up to what it has long called the “corporate media” after months of largely limiting its engagement with reporters to conservative outlets. DeSantis fielded questions from NBC News on immigration issues in June and sat down with CNN this week.
The campaign said more interviews with the national media are coming, along with more media pools and more general press access to the candidate while he’s on the runway.
They’re calling it the “DeSantis is everywhere” approach, bringing in a new hire and solidifying the communications team to help execute it. Cody Hall joins the campaign as Senior Communications Advisor. He will remain one of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s top political advisers, also serving as communications director after working on his 2018 gubernatorial campaign. Campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo will take over as communications director, and Bryan Griffin will continue as press secretary.
The DeSantis campaign has already fired about a dozen people, as NBC News reported. According to campaign officials, as of now, they are not planning any more budget-related layoffs.
The layoffs rocked the campaign. The source in the room that day said a lawyer and a senior staffer, not Peck, walked through the office and curtly notified employees that they were being fired, thanking them for their service and telling them they had to leave by 2 p.m. that day. The laid off employees were told someone would follow up with them in the next few days.
The first debate of the Republican primary on August 23 will be a key test for DeSantis, who will be the leading polling figure on the stage if Trump stays away, as he has indicated he will. The campaign plans to increase conversations about DeSantis’s biography in the coming weeks, with a focus on the economy and foreign policy as main topics.
“The elites have already chosen their candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, but the American people want a fighter who is not a creature of Washington and who is not afraid to stand up and take our country back,” said a source familiar with campaign thinking.
