Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has reportedly fired roughly a dozen of his staffers as his campaign is burning through cash without making a dent in former President Donald Trump’s lead.
More staffers are expected to lose their jobs over the next few weeks amid the cost-cutting campaign shakeup, less than two months after the Florida Governor officially launched his White House bid, NBC reported.
Those who were fired were mainly mid-level staffers to bring down costs after DeSantis’ camp determined they may have hired too many staffers too early, despite its $20 million haul after six weeks on the campaign trail, sources told the outlet.
“They never should have brought so many people on, the burn rate was way too high,” one Republican source familiar with the campaign’s thought process. “People warned the campaign manager but she wanted to hear none of it.”
Campaign manager Generra Peck, who led DeSantis 2022 gubernatorial reelection campaign, is now in the hot seat, NBC reported.
A Morning Consult national poll released Tuesday, which counts toward the Republican National Committee’s polling requirement, showed Trump leading among the eight candidates who will participate in the first Republican debate last month with 56% supporting him, followed by DeSantis at 17%.
A donor told the outlet that DeSantis campaign is a revolving door of staffers coming and going, most of whom have never worked together before. In his three runs for Congress he used three different campaign teams and completely revamped his staff in his 2018 run for governor.
Two senior advisors, Dave Abrams, the campaign’s communications and media director, and Tucker Obenshain, who led external affairs, left the campaign this week to help a non-profit group boost DeSantis’ national profile, Politico reported.
DeSantis’ campaign lists 92 people on its payroll during the first period of fundraising, according to Federal Election Commission finance reports filed on Saturday — by far the most of any other GOP presidential candidate, NBC News reported.
DeSantis has failed to make a major cut into frontrunning Trump’s massive lead, who holds a 20-point lead on the Florida Governor in his home state, according to a Florida Atlantic University poll released last week.
“There is an overall sense, including with me, that he just has not ignited the way we thought he would,” one donor told the outlet.
According to a confidential internal memo obtained by NBC News on Friday, the DeSantis campaign is refocusing its efforts on early-voting states like Iowa where they believe they can flip Trump supporters.
“Early state voters are only softly committed to the candidates they select on a ballot question this far out — including many Trump supporters,” the memo says. “Our focus group participants in the early states even say they do not plan on making up their mind until they meet the candidates or watch them debate.”
