As stagnating Ron DeSantis slashes his campaign staff with a mass firing — and more expected firings are in the works — his donors seem none too pleased with how he has mismanaged his presidential run.
"DeSantis stock isn't rising. Twenty percent is not what people signed up for," one donor griped, soured by DeSantis' low polling numbers that the donor generously cited as "20%" — a number that is actually closer to 17%, according to a recent Morning Consult poll. In January, Florida's fascist governor polled at 31%.
"Yeah, there are people grumbling about it, no doubt," another DeSantis donor told NBC News. "There is an overall sense, including with me, that he just has not ignited the way we thought he would."
From NBC:
Sources involved with the DeSantis campaign say there is an internal assessment among some that it hired too many staffers too early and that despite having brought in $20 million during its first six weeks, it was becoming clear that costs needed to be brought down. …
A Republican source familiar with the campaign's thought process said: "They never should have brought so many people on. The burn rate was way too high. …
DeSantis has been unable to make up ground against Trump after nearly two months as an official candidate. The stagnation is starting to frustrate some supporters, who want a shakeup of the campaign…
The person said DeSantis' inner circle underestimated just how hard — and expensive — it would be to break the grip on the Republican base held by Trump, who has a commanding lead and is seen as the overwhelming front-runner. Even in Florida, which re-elected DeSantis by nearly 20 percentage points just seven months ago, Trump now has a 20-point lead over him, according to a Florida Atlantic University poll released last week.
DeSantis has signaled that he is aware his campaign did not start the way he wanted, and he has largely blamed media coverage and other outside factors.
As a Florida man who can't even manage his own campaign, it's not clear how the fiscally flummoxed candidate thinks he can run an entire country.
