August 31, 2023 04:07 PM UTC

DeSantis Already Shutting Down In Super Tuesday States

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• by: Colorado Pols

NBC News reports today that Never Back Down, the SuperPAC working on behalf of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ flagging presidential campaign is, well, backing down from field campaign efforts in several key Super Tuesday primary states:

Never Back Down, the super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, has ceased its door-knocking operations in Nevada, home to a key early nominating contest, and California, a delegate-rich Super Tuesday state, officials confirmed Wednesday.

They added that in recent weeks, the group also ended its field operations in North Carolina and Texas, two additional states that vote on Super Tuesday in March…

The decision to fold its door-knocking operations in Nevada and some Super Tuesday states coincides with DeSantis’ rough summer, which has featured him struggling to gain traction against the GOP front-runner, former President Donald Trump, since launching his campaign in late May. In recent weeks, DeSantis’ campaign has publicly promoted resets and staff shake-ups as he seeks to generate momentum.

Never Back Down insists that this isn’t a retreat but rather a retrenchment, focusing on the earliest primary states exclusively in hope of gaining a foothold to turn things around later. The problem is that any such pullback in light of DeSantis’ cratering poll numbers looks like failure, not strategy.

Colorado is also a Super Tuesday primary state, but we haven’t heard that either DeSantis’ campaign or SuperPAC–so well-coordinated they share private jets, pushing the limits of campaign finance law creatively–had operations on the ground in our state to shut down. In fact, the last word we can find about DeSantis in Colorado for campaign purposes was his endorsement of GOP U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea last year (apologies if you are not yet finished grieving).

Despite tremendous self-funded hype O’Dea never led a legitimate poll in the 2022 Colorado U.S. race, just like DeSantis has never come close to catching Donald Trump for the 2024 presidential nomination. In both cases, these candidates’ failure to thrive became a “doom spiral” of negative expectations and predictably negative outcomes.

When it’s over, O’Dea and DeSantis can commiserate with some horse sushi and beer over ice.