Pro-DeSantis super PAC shake-up adds to 2024 election turmoil ahead of Iowa caucuses

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political orbit is grappling with new uncertainty just seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses offer the first voter test of the Republican presidential field.

Chris Jankowski, the chief executive of the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down, abruptly resigned on Wednesday amid deep strategic disagreements and infighting within the group.

“Never Back Down’s main goal and sole focus has been to elect Governor Ron DeSantis as President,” Jankowski said in a statement. “Given the current environment it has become untenable for me to deliver on the shared goal and that goes well beyond a difference of strategic opinion.”

While campaigns and super PACs are legally prohibited from coordinating, the shake-up at Never Back Down casts a shadow over the strategy and stability of a group that has played an outsized role in DeSantis’ national political efforts since he launched his presidential campaign.

Some Republicans said that the upheaval at Never Back Down was indicative of a larger problem within the governor’s political orbit. Despite entering the 2024 race six months ago as the Republican candidate best positioned to compete with Donald Trump for the GOP nomination, DeSantis has only fallen further behind the former president.

“These kinds of shake-ups are symptoms of problems. They’re not causes of problems,” Keith Naughton, a veteran Republican strategist, said. “Clearly DeSantis has plateaued a little bit. The question is how does he reset, or can he reset? I think this is just a sign of them trying to patch things up.”

The ties between DeSantis’ political operation and the super PAC have been apparent for months.

The governor’s former state-level political committee transferred $82.5 million to Never Back Down in May — a move that was widely seen as DeSantis giving his blessing to the super PAC, which was formed early this year by former Trump administration official Ken Cuccinelli, just three months before DeSantis launched his presidential campaign.

Over the past several months, the super PAC has organized a slew of events featuring DeSantis in key early-voting states, such as Iowa and New Hampshire, as part of a series of Never Back Down bus tours. It has trained and paid an army of workers to do voter outreach in key states.

The group has also helped reduce the financial pressure on DeSantis’ operation at times — it went on the airwaves with ads much earlier than the governor’s formal campaign and helped pay for DeSantis’ travel to super PAC-hosted events.

And when DeSantis’ campaign underwent a shake-up over the summer — laying off dozens of staffers and replacing his campaign manager — DeSantis brought David Polyansky, a longtime Republican operative who had been advising Never Back Down, onto his team as deputy campaign manager.

Some concerns

But some DeSantis allies have expressed concerns for months that the campaign had ceded too much control over message and strategy to the super PAC, noting that Never Back Down’s involvement went far beyond the typical role of a super PAC.

Those concerns have caught the attention of some of the governor’s critics, as well.

“I think there’s a realization that what the super PAC has done hasn’t really made a dent,” said Rick Wilson, a former Republican consultant and a co-founder of the anti-Trump group, the Lincoln Project. “They don’t know how to effectively fight against Trump and the path for DeSantis isn’t there. It’s not a fun place to be at this point. It’s not a happy place to be.”

Tensions flared up last week at a strategy meeting held by Never Back Down, according to NBC News, which first reported the infighting.

Jeff Roe, the group’s top strategist, and Scott Wagner, a board member with close ties to DeSantis, were wrangling about financial and operational strategy. The two nearly came to blows, NBC reported.

After the dispute, three close DeSantis allies launched a second super PAC, Fight Right Inc. The group registered with the Federal Election Commission on Nov. 16 and has reserved at least $919,000 in ads in Iowa since Monday, according to the media-tracking firm AdImpact.

A spokesperson for Never Back Down did not respond to the Miami Herald’s request for comment. Andrew Romeo, the communications director for DeSantis’ campaign, welcomed the creation of Fight Right, saying that it adds to the work of groups like Never Back Down and widens DeSantis’ network of support.

“We are excited to see even more backers stepping up to support Ron DeSantis’ candidacy,” Romeo said. “We’ve already seen tremendous value in the support of groups like Never Back Down, and adding new allies to the mix to independently help spread the governor’s message will only strengthen our advantage in the important weeks and months ahead.”

Kristin Davison, a longtime political strategist who has been working for Never Back Down, was tapped to replace Jankowski as the group’s CEO, The New York Times reported.

In 2017, Davison served as the campaign manager for the gubernatorial campaign of Adam Putnam, who at the time was DeSantis’ chief rival. She has also worked with Sen. Marco Rubio and Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt.

While DeSantis remains in second place in Iowa ahead of the Jan. 15 caucuses, some recent polls out of other early states such as New Hampshire and South Carolina show him slipping into third — even fourth — place, behind former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. A Washington Post/Monmouth University poll out of New Hampshire last week showed DeSantis running in fifth place there.