Chief Strategist of Pro-DeSantis Super PAC Resigns One Month out from Iowa Caucuses

In case you missed it, Jeff Roe, the top political consultant on the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down, quit over the weekend after a Washington Post report highlighted new intra-group allegations of mismanagement and distrust. Talk about an early Christmas gift for the Trump and Haley campaigns less than four weeks out from the first Republican presidential nominating contest in Iowa, where the Florida governor is staking his presidential campaign:

(As of this writing, DeSantis still trails the former president by double digits in Iowa, according to FiveThirtyEight‘s polling average.)

Roe’s resignation suggests an organization in complete disarray. The New York Times notes:

Since the day before Thanksgiving, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, which is called Never Back Down, has seen the resignation of one chief executive and one board chairman; the firing of a second chief executive, along with two other top officials; and now the late-night quitting of Mr. Roe. All have come after intense infighting and finger-pointing as Mr. DeSantis has slipped in the polls.

These departures would not have garnered nearly as much media attention had the super PAC staffers not elevated themselves so early on in the race as the chief organizers of DeSantis’s advertising strategy and ground game. As the Washington Post notes, the formation of Never Back Down marked “the first time a major campaign ceded so much of its operations to an entity it could not legally control.” You’d better believe 2028 presidential aspirants are taking notes.