Florida governor Ron DeSantis is cutting more than a third of his campaign staff as the reboot of his presidential bid continues.
Thirty-eight people have had their positions cut in an array of departments, Politico first reported. They will include the roughly ten event planning positions that were announced several weeks ago in addition to the recent departures of two senior DeSantis campaign advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain.
“Following a top-to-bottom review of our organization, we have taken additional, aggressive steps to streamline operations and put Ron DeSantis in the strongest position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden,” DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck said in a statement. “Gov. DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we’re ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”
Two months into the presidential campaign, the Florida governor has not been able to cut into former president Donald Trump’s lead in the race. While polls had DeSantis within 15 points of Trump as recently as March, the gap has more than doubled in the months since. Recent surveys also have the rest of the pack catching up to DeSantis in states like Iowa and South Carolina, according to polls taken by Fox Business.
DeSantis told Fox News earlier this month that he will be paying more attention to the early nominating states.
“It is a state-by-state primary. I think it’d be political malpractice to be running for president fixated on national, rather than Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina,” DeSantis said.
The New York Times reported that allies have complained of a lack of a coherent message and that the campaign is struggling to keep up with swelling costs.
DeSantis has not attacked the former president on issues like January 6 and his many legal troubles, preferring instead to criticize him from the right for campaign promises DeSantis says he failed to deliver on.
While the campaign announced it raised $20 million during the second quarter of this year, much of it has been spent and also came from donors who had given the maximum amount and could not give again.
The Times reported that $279,000 was spent for the campaign launch at the Four Seasons in Miami and a recent donor event included an $87,000 reservation at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Utah. However, one of the greatest expenditures has been the Florida governor’s preference to fly private. The flights have burned through nearly 40 percent of every dollar he raised in his first six weeks without airing a single television ad, according to the Times.
A spokesman said in a note to supporters that “no campaign is immune to changes, cuts, or challenges.” He added that the campaign being scaled down will allow it to better put the focus on the candidate.
The campaign has expressed confidence that DeSantis will prove everyone wrong, including a legacy media the Florida governor says is against him.
“Clearly you see an effort to create these narratives,” DeSantis told Fox’s media reporter Howard Kurtz. “I think they know that I would beat Biden and beat him sound.”
However, the campaign has already shifted its media strategy to include appearances on outlets like CNN.