July 25 (UPI) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has cut more than a third of his presidential campaign staff to “streamline operations” amid concerns over finances.
Campaign advisers confirmed Tuesday that 38 jobs were cut across several departments, including 10 event planning positions. The cuts include the recent departures of senior campaign advisers Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain. Both are expected to help with an outside pro-DeSantis group.
Over the weekend, DeSantis fired a staffer who retweeted and then deleted a video with superimposed Nazi imagery over DeSantis’ face.
“Nate Hochman is no longer with the campaign,” a campaign adviser said. “And we will not be commenting on him further.”
“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 Tuesday.
“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,” Peck added, as she revealed the campaign had overspent in some areas.
“The way she put it is, ‘We placed a lot of bets early, some of them worked. Some of them didn’t. What we’re doing going forward is going to be more tactical in that if something’s not working, we’re going to jettison it very quickly,'” Florida lobbyist and fundraiser Nick Iarossi said.
Among the areas where advisers cite excess spending in the Republican governor’s campaign are large-scale campaign events and fundraisers requiring DeSantis to travel, which together cost more than $5.6 million during the second quarter.
In the fundraising quarter that ran from April to June, DeSantis — who is currently running in second place behind former President Donald Trump — raised about $20 million from big donors who gave four-figure sums. Donations were lagging from supporters who gave less than $200.
The campaign has planned fundraising stops through the middle of next month with stops in Massachusetts, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.
In addition, DeSantis’ Never Back Down PAC raised more than $130 million in the past year as part of his gubernatorial reelection campaign, which can be transferred. The super PAC has hired hundreds of staffers to door-knock in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina with plans to expand with the primaries.
“What I like most about what I saw is, there’s an acknowledgement of, ‘We need to continue to get better,'” Iarossi said.
“This is a group of folks and a candidate that wants to evolve and adapt as they learn things and as the landscape changes.”
