DeSantis’ campaign lays off 38 staffers, more than one-third of total employees

Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign has laid off more than one-third of its staff, the campaign confirmed to the Miami Herald, part of an additional cost-cutting measure from the governor amid a disappointing start to the GOP primary.

DeSantis officials argued the layoffs are a sign that, two months after launching, the campaign is taking the necessary steps to ultimately win the president primary. But the news nonetheless adds to the growing doubts among many Republicans — including some of DeSantis’ own donors — in the governor’s ability to build and sustain a campaign capable of defeating former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican primary’s frontrunner.

“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. “Governor 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.”

The campaign let 38 staffers go, a campaign source confirmed. The number includes a handful of campaign workers who were laid off earlier this month. Campaign finance records filed this month showed that DeSantis had about 90 staffers working for his campaign.

News of the additional layoffs was first reported by Politico.

The layoffs are part of a sweeping effort to retool DeSantis’ campaign as it struggles to make up ground on Trump, his chief rival for the 2024 Republican nomination.

DeSantis and his top aides laid out their vision for the campaign during a retreat with donors over the weekend, including plans to cut campaign costs and reposition the governor as a leaner, insurgent candidate.

The campaign shared talking points with key supporters on Tuesday, emphasizing that “no campaign is immune to changes, cuts, or challenges,” and noting that the campaign “acknowledged that aggressive steps needed to be taken and executed on that plan.”

The talking points also discussed plans to cut down on event and travel costs and reinvest the money saved from staffing reductions “in what will win this primary and general election: Ron DeSantis and his message.”

A rough stretch

Donors and political operatives began sounding alarm bells about the DeSantis campaign’s finances earlier this month after a campaign finance disclosure showed his team burning through money at a breakneck pace.

While the campaign raised a staggering $20 million in the first weeks of DeSantis’ candidacy, it spent about $8 million of that haul, including roughly $1 million on payroll and payroll processing. The campaign ended June with about $12 million in the bank, but only $9 million to use in the primary.

DeSantis started off the year on a high note, coming off a nearly 20-point reelection victory that helped jolt him to the top of the list of 2024 Republican presidential contenders. But his standing in the race began slipping as he waited months to formally enter the race and faced a series of attacks from Trump.

In the days before he launched his campaign, DeSantis reassured donors that the Republican primary was effectively a two-person matchup between him and Trump, and that he remained the GOP’s best hope to defeat Biden in the general election.

But a series of early missteps, including exorbitant campaign spending, have rattled confidence in DeSantis’ chances among some Republicans, who argue that there’s still plenty of room for his primary challengers to catch up to him.

“He has made some significant missteps,” Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who worked on DeSantis’ 2018 gubernatorial campaign, said. “He has spent wildly on aspects of a campaign that do not move polling numbers and he’s left the door open to a number of other candidates to get a serious look.”

The latest round of layoffs is part of a foreboding trend for DeSantis and his campaign, said Kevin Madden, a senior adviser to U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.

“For campaigns, what’s really important is trend lines; trend lines on fundraising, trend lines on the growth of your operation,” Madden said. “When you look at your fundraising dollars and the trend line is starting to flatten or you have poll numbers that aren’t increasing, you’re laying off staff, you’re in trouble.”

There’s at least some evidence that DeSantis is facing renewed competition in the primary. A Fox Business poll released on Sunday found U.S. Sen. Tim Scott trailing DeSantis in Iowa by just 5 percentage points. Another poll from Fox Business showed former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley running in second place in the state behind Trump, with DeSantis finishing in third.

DeSantis and his allies have placed a particularly high premium on winning the Iowa caucuses, seeing the first-in-the-nation nominating contest as their best chance to upset Trump early on. The governor is slated to travel to the state to kick off a bus tour for Never Back Down, the main super PAC supporting his presidential campaign.

Never Back Down is also going back on the airwaves in Iowa at the end of July for the first time in a month, according to Medium Buying, a firm that tracks political advertising.

Other national surveys show DeSantis still drawing significantly more support than some of his non-Trump rivals. A Monmouth University survey released Tuesday, for instance, found the governor receiving 22% support from GOP voters, with his next closest competitor, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, stuck at just 5%.

Trump, however, still held a huge 32-point lead in the survey, at 54% support. Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor who’s backing DeSantis’ presidential bid, insisted that DeSantis is still the only viable alternative to Trump in the primary, but stressed that he desperately needs an early win.

“It’s still a two-person race,” Eberhart said. “DeSantis needs to make a shift and make a decisive showing in Iowa or it’s going to be a one-man race.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2023 at 1:56 PM.