DeSANTIS IN DISARRAY?

 

#FlashInThePan.

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“DeSANTIS IN DISARRAY? — This morning, with FEC filings in hand, one thing is clear: Serious doubts now cloud the future of RON DeSANTIS’s presidential campaign.

“When you’re running for office, there are a few words and phrases you never want to see up top in news articles about your campaign …

1. ‘SOLVENCY’: If that’s in the lede of an article, good news is almost certain not to follow. And yet, there it was in an NBC piece that blew up group chats all over D.C. shortly after being published last night:

“‘DeSantis tapped out top donors and burned through $7.9 million in his first six weeks as a presidential candidate, according to an NBC News analysis of his new campaign finance disclosure,’ wrote Jonathan Allen, Bridget Bowman, Ben Kamisar and Alexandra Marquez. ‘The numbers suggest, for the first time, that solvency could be a threat to DeSantis’s campaign, which has touted its fundraising ability as a key measure of viability.’

“Those numbers, in brief:

“DeSantis raised $20.1 million between mid-May and the end of June. About $3 million of that can only be used in the general election — making it irrelevant to his fight against DONALD TRUMP.

Of that $20.1 million, more than two-thirds came from donors who are now maxed out and can’t give him any more money.

About 40% of the money DeSantis raised has already been spent. A decent chunk of that went to payroll: Notably, DeSantis had 92 people on his campaign staff — ‘by far the biggest staff footprint of the GOP presidential candidates,’ NBC notes. Which brings us to number two …

2. ‘SHEDDING STAFF’ and ‘CASH CRUNCH’: ‘DeSantis’ presidential campaign is shedding staff as it navigates a cash crunch and looks to refocus resources on Iowa,’ Alex Isenstadt scooped last night.

“Fewer than 10 staffers were let go by the Florida governor’s campaign Thursday … Each of the aides was involved in event planning, and some of them may soon wind up at an allied outside group. ‘Never Back Down,’ the pro-DeSantis super PAC, has received resumes from staffers who’ve been let go.”

3. ‘SKEPTICISM’ and ‘PRIVATE CONCERNS’ and ‘INSULARITY’: ‘More than seven weeks in, skepticism about the Florida governor’s 2024 bid has grown,’ report WaPo’s Hannah Knowles, Josh Dawsey, Michael Scherer and Marianne LeVine. Some people who have advised and supported DeSantis have raised private concerns about his message, and the effectiveness and insularity of his campaign operation, according to people familiar with the comments, among the more than 30 people interviewed for this story.

“The doubts extend to long-friendly Fox News … and its owner, the conservative media magnate RUPERT MURDOCH, according to another person who speaks regularly with Murdoch about the presidential race. ‘He was excited about him at the beginning, but the more he shows himself, the less appealing he is,’ said this person, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations and talk more freely. Murdoch will ‘come back to Trump if he thinks Trump can win,’ this person added. A representative for Murdoch declined to comment Saturday.”

“How is the DeSantis camp shifting in response? ‘The campaign has started rolling out national policy — economic issues next, then foreign policy in August — and plans to do more mainstream media interviews around those proposals,’ the Post reports.

“Those lines caught the eye of Bill Scher, the savvy politics editor at Washington Monthly: ‘Lordy, the ELIZABETH WARREN white paper strategy is not going to help,’Scher tweeted. ‘Team DeSantis refuses to see the race for what it is. The race is not about who has the best tax plan. The race is: Trump, yes or no.’

“One sign the DeSantis media pivot is underway: CNN just announced that on Tuesday the Florida governor will sit down with JAKE TAPPER for an interview in South Carolina.

“WHAT IT ALL ADDS UP TO: The ‘DeSantis in decline’ storyline is a body blow to one of the central arguments for his campaign: That he’d be a competent, disciplined version of Trump. Trump without the chaos. Trump, but with a more professional operation.

“That’s an easier sell when things are going well: People on the team are generally satisfied, and there’s no need to point fingers.

“But things are not going well for DeSantis. At the start of the year, the average national GOP primary poll had Trump at 43% and DeSantis close behind at 37%, according to FiveThirtyEight. Compare that to today: Trump averages just under 50%, while DeSantis has sunk to 21%. Since DeSantis announced his campaign on May 24, he has gained just 0.4 percentage points in the national polling average.

“This is not just an issue of financial solvency. It’s an issue of strategy.

“A negative narrative is taking hold about his campaign — that it is bloated, is overconfident, lacks a clear strategy, etc. Pair that with preexisting negative impressions about the candidate himself (that he is combative, not personable, awkward in retail settings, etc.) and a press corps that is — let’s be honest — somewhat tired of Trump and remains fascinated by the Florida governor, and there are real hurdles ahead for DeSantis.

“The good news for him, if we can call it that, is that narratives can change, and the six months between now and the Iowa caucuses provide ample time to turn things around. But that’s also a whole lot of time for new articles to be published about him and his campaign — and they may contain phrases altogether more damning than ‘cash crunch’ and ‘private concerns.’”

— Politico Playbook Blog, 7/16/2023. Capitalization in original.

POLITICO Nightly: The Tucker Carlson primary

 

BY CALDER MCHUGH Tucker Carlson attends the final round of the Bedminster Invitational LIV Golf tournament. | Seth Wenig/AP Photo SHOW TIME — Tucker Carlson might be out at Fox News, but he’s still in a position to shape the direction of the 2024 Republican primary. On Friday, Carlson is hosting a presidential forum in Des Moines, Iowa, sponsored by influential evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats. A few candidates will be missing but the roster includes six of the most prominent presidential contenders: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. The six have disparate relationships with Carlson that will go a long way toward determining how they prep for the event. No candidate has been on Tucker’s new show on Twitter. But their appearances on his Fox show before it was canceled gives us some clues into how Friday’s forum could go. Ramaswamy is probably sleeping the easiest. He went on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” dozens of times, and the program helped turn him into a (semi) known entity within the party. When it came time to announce his candidacy for president, Ramaswamy decided he’d get the most reach if he went on Tucker’s show to do so. Finally, when Fox News canceled “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Ramaswamy made it known that he thought Carlson would be a “good addition” to the 2024 race himself. At one point, DeSantis was in a similarly advantageous position. He was a regular on Carlson’s Fox program, and his consistent discussion of “woke” politics (he used the word “woke” six times in his announcement that he was running for president and hasn’t slowed down since) dovetails with Carlson’s political sensibilities, which tend to focus on cultural issues. But Carlson’s former employer Fox News has reportedly soured on DeSantis of late , concerned his campaign is leading nowhere. Whether Carlson agrees will be clearer after Friday. After Carlson’s two former favorites, things get a little trickier. Scott was on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” just once in 2020, and the two don’t seem to have much of a relationship. Pence appeared on the show multiple times while serving as vice president, discussing topics like sanctions against Russia. More recently, though, Pence slammed Carlson’s portrayal of Jan. 6 and Carlson called Pence “delusional” and argued “[Pence] spent four years getting bossed around by Trump like a concubine.” The final two candidates are likely the ones prepping the hardest for a rough ride with their host. Not long after Haley’s campaign launch, Carlson submarined her candidacy by saying, “Nikki Haley believes in collective racial guilt. She believes identity politics is our future. ‘Vote for me because I’m a woman,’ she says. That’s her pitch.” As for Hutchinson, in 2021 he and Carlson got into a heated back and forth on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” about the then-governor’s decision to veto a bill that would have banned surgery for transgender youth. Hutchinson, who’s trying to carve out a moderate conservative lane in the primary, has also attacked Carlson for questioning America’s support of Ukraine . Carlson himself remains one of the biggest wildcards in the Republican primary. Viewership for “Tucker Carlson on Twitter” has been in a nosedive since his first show . In response, he’s gotten even more unbridled than he ever was on Fox. He recently interviewed Andrew Tate, the former kickboxer who’s garnered internet fame for his crude comments about women (he is a self-described misogynist) and was arrested in Romania earlier this year on charges of rape, human trafficking and setting up a criminal gang. With flagging numbers in tow, Carlson has an incentive to prove that he remains a force that shapes Republican Party thinking. The candidates at the forum will likewise have to make a calculation: what’s the best way to approach the latest iteration of the one-time most watched personality on cable news? Hanging over the event, of course, is the front runner in the polls: former President Donald Trump. Trump, who is still courting the evangelical vote in Iowa, reportedly asked Vander Plaats if he could send surrogate J.D. Vance in his place . Vander Plaats refused. Instead, despite Carlson’s recent effusive praise of Trump, the former president will appear in Cedar Rapids next week at a town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, recently called Carlson the “dad of the conservative movement” and “this generation’s Rush Limbaugh.” With six serious presidential candidates in the mix on Friday, Carlson will have a chance to prove if those descriptions still apply. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @calder_mchugh .   SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don’t miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY .     WHAT'D I MISS? — House intel committee pushing new legislation to help CIA sexual assault victims: After CIA employees told Congress that their cases of sexual assault at the agency were mishandled, the House intelligence committee is pushing new legislation that would make it easier for victims of sexual harassment and assault at Langley to seek assistance . The committee, driven by Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and ranking member Jim Himes (D-Conn.), is including the provision, details of which were obtained by POLITICO, in the Intelligence Authorization Act that was marked up this morning in a closed-door session. The provision creates an Office of the Victim and Whistleblower Counsel at the CIA to serve as a single point of contact for alleged victims and to provide them with legal assistance and advocate on their behalf as they try to get justice. — ChatGPT faces consumer protection probe: The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether ChatGPT is violating consumer protection laws , a person familiar with the matter confirmed today. The 20-page investigation document, first obtained by The Washington Post, asks OpenAI to hand over documents for a probe looking at whether the company behind the popular ChatGPT chatbot has engaged in unfair or deceptive practices relating to consumer harm or privacy or data security practices. This includes documents and communications involving complaints involving people’s privacy and safety, in addition to instances of ChatGPT making inaccurate or disparaging comments about individuals. — Biden ‘serious’ about prisoner swap for WSJ reporter detained in Russia: President Joe Biden today made his strongest public promise yet that the United States is “serious” about orchestrating a prisoner swap to secure the release of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia. “I’m serious on a prisoner exchange,” Biden said at a news conference in Helsinki. “And I’m serious about doing all we can to free Americans being illegally held in Russia or anywhere else for that matter, and that process is underway.” — Begich challenging Peltola for House seat in Alaska: Republican Nick Begich announced today he would run for Congress again in Alaska , setting up a possible rematch against incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska), the state’s only statewide elected Democrat. Begich, a Republican activist in the state, ran for Congress in both the August 2022 special election to succeed the late Rep. Don Young — the state’s longtime member of the House who died while traveling back to Alaska in March 2022 — and the November general election. He came in third, behind Peltola and Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska governor, in both contests. NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 LEAKY SHIP — An Iowa state senator who’d previously endorsed Donald Trump is flipping his support to Ron DeSantis just days after the former president attacked Iowa’s popular Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, reports POLITICO’s Alex Isenstadt. Jeff Reichman, who is serving his first term in the state Senate, announced today that he is defecting to the Florida governor’s presidential campaign. In a statement, Reichman singled out praise for Reynolds, who Trump has targeted for her warmness toward DeSantis, his main rival for the GOP nomination. “Iowa Republicans must be united if we are going to take our country back and reverse Joe Biden’s failures,” Reichman said in a statement. “Gov. DeSantis has achieved the same type of commonsense policy victories in Florida as we have in Iowa under Gov. Kim Reynolds, and he will deliver historic success for the conservative movement as president as well.” SOUR TASTE — With Ron DeSantis stalling in the Republican presidential primary, some wealthy donors who’d hoped he could beat Donald Trump are now souring on DeSantis and giving Tim Scott a serious look , report POLITICO’s Sally Goldenberg and Natalie Allison. Billionaire businessman Ronald Lauder, the Estée Lauder makeup heir who supported Trump in 2020, recently flew to South Carolina to meet with Scott, the state’s junior senator and longshot presidential candidate, according to three people aware of the late June meeting. The meeting comes amid widespread angst among wealthy GOP backers about the emerging 2024 field, and DeSantis’ bumpy start in particular. Many high-dollar donors in Trump’s native New York City have tired of the former president and worry about his general election chances. But they say their faith in the Florida governor has been shaken by early campaign missteps and his hardline positions on abortion, transgender rights and other culture-war issues. They fear time is running out for anyone else to break through. Now, several donors are starting to more seriously mull backing Scott — a more traditional Republican alternative to the populist and combative Trump and DeSantis. AROUND THE WORLD Spanish right-wing opposition party Partido Popular leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo delivers a speech today during an electoral meeting as part of Spain's general election campaign. | Cesar Manso/AFP via Getty Images YOU’VE GOT MAIL — Spain’s conservatives have a new boogeyman: The postal service. Ahead of next weekend’s national election, post offices across the country have been mobbed by voters seeking to sign up for mail-in balloting before the deadline for that option expires today. Spain’s center-right Popular Party, however, isn’t happy — and is accusing the postal service of meddling in the election, writes Aitor Hernández-Morales . According to Correos, the state-owned postal service, a whopping 94,000 Spaniards filed for mail-in voting on Wednesday. It’s the first time that Spain is holding an election so late in the summer, when more than a quarter of registered voters are expected to be on vacation. From the beginning, record numbers of mail-in votes were expected, but far more electors than anticipated have gone this route. By today, 2,456,826 mail-in applications had been registered, accounting for nearly 7 percent of all registered voters who are residents in Spain and more than doubling the 997,530 mail-in ballots filed in November 2019, when Spain last held a national election. Although some of the postal service’s trade unions have complained that Correos was not showing sufficient alacrity to deal with the avalanche of applications, the entity insists the process is under control, in part thanks to the extended operating hours its offices are offering across the country in order to accommodate the procrastinating electors. TOUGH TALK — Germany today accused China of “grave violations of human rights” in its first public China strategy , but took a softer line on economic measures like investment bans, write Hans von der Burchard and Peter Wilke . The 64-page document calls China an indispensable partner but, increasingly, also a rival and competitor. “Without China, we will not succeed in curbing the climate crisis, nor in achieving more fair prosperity in the world,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said as she presented the strategy at the MERICS China think tank in Berlin. However, Baerbock also raised the need “to protect our European economy against unfair competition” from China, making an indirect reference to Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” industrial strategy and massive state subsidies for key sectors like electric vehicles. The strategy describes such unfair practices as a “threat” to Germany’s “security, sovereignty and prosperity.” Concretely, the document warns that “China strives to create economic and technological dependencies in order to then use them to achieve political goals and interests.” While Baerbock’s hawkish foreign ministry drafted a tougher first version late last year, the final version was softened — particularly regarding investments by German companies in China — reflecting Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s more moderate line toward Beijing.   UNLEASH THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE WITH POLITICO, A 7/20 INTERACTIVE EVENT: Imagine a future where rare genetic diseases are not only treatable, but potentially curable. Where our approach to chronic illness takes a monumental leap forward. That future is already taking shape in the form of next-generation health care treatments such as gene therapy. Join POLITICO on Thursday , July 20 and delve into the burgeoning field of gene therapies, which hold the power to redefine our health care landscape. Are you ready to explore this new frontier in health care? Don't miss this chance to be part of the conversation. REGISTER NOW .     NIGHTLY NUMBER $975,000 The amount of money that the U.S. government is paying now-retired Army Col. Kathryn Spletstoser to settle a sexual assault case. Spletstoser in 2019 publicly accused retired Gen. John Hyten of sexual assault, according to court documents released today. Hyten has denied the allegations, and an Air Force investigation was unable to find evidence of wrongdoing. Spletstoser, who was Hyten’s aide while he served as head of U.S. Strategic Command in 2017, accused the general of unwanted sexual advances and inappropriately touching her in a hotel room during a prominent national security conference in California. RADAR SWEEP TRACING BACK — San Francisco has a persistent drug problem. But until now, no journalists have traced the source of many of those drugs so distinctly: to a small cluster of villages about 80 miles north of Honduras’ capital. There, as Megan Cassidy and Gabrielle Lurie reported for The San Francisco Chronicle, signs of San Francisco abound — from Golden State Warriors and San Francisco 49ers t-shirts to a house that pays homage to the Golden Gate Bridge. Through interviews with migrants, court documents and reporting trips, Cassidy and Lurie revealed the fascinating connections between the two places. Read their investigation here . PARTING IMAGE On this date in 1984: Two protesters take a drag on each other's marijuana joints during a "taste-in" sponsored by the Northern California Marijuana Growers in San Francisco. The growers' association was protesting for the legalization of marijuana. | Eric Risberg/AP Photo Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh Katherine Long @katherinealong   FOLLOW US

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Follow the money! Small donors, big donors, and the midterms Big donors are giving more to Republicans. More small donors are giving to Democrats. Where will this lead? Robert Reich Aug 12 Notably, the Inflation Reduction Act didn’t attract a single Republican vote in the Senate. (And at least one Democratic senator — Kyrsten Sinema — made sure its tax provisions wouldn’t raise tax rates on rich individuals.) Why? We talk a lot about money in politics, but there’s a huge and growing difference between the big money (campaign donations of $1 million or more), most of it pouring into Republican coffers and small money (individual donations of $200 or less), mainly pouring into the Democrats. (Corporations have been giving to both sides, in roughly equal measure.) The significance of this difference is growing. With the midterms elections looming, the gap between the two sources is larger than ever. Democrats are far outpacing Republicans in small-dollar donations. The most recent reports (through June 30) show, for example, that: — In Georgia, incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock has raised $14 million in small donations; Republican senate candidate Herschel Walker has raised only about $8 million in small donations. — In Florida, Val Demings, the Democratic challenger to Senator Marco Rubio, has raised more than $24 million in small donations; Rubio himself has reported $12.7 million in small donations. — In Arizona, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly's re-election campaign has raised nearly $23 million from small-dollar donors. His GOP challenger, Blake Masters, less than $2 million from small donors. But the GOP’s big money donors are making up the difference. — Billionaire Peter Thiel has so far poured over $25 million into the races of Blake Masters in Arizona and J.D. Vance in Ohio. — Kenneth C. Griffin, the CEO of giant hedge fund Citadel, is bankrolling Republican super PACs to the tune of nearly $50 million. — Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman of giant hedge fund Blackstone, has so far contributed a combined $20 million to the main House and Senate Republican super PAC. — Banking heir Timothy Mellon (descendant of the robber baron Andrew Mellon) has so far contributed $10 million to the main House GOP super PAC. — Ditto billionaire Patrick R. Ryan. — Miriam Adelson (whose husband, Sheldon Adelson, was one of the GOP’s most generous contributors until his death last year) just made her first $5 million donation. The list goes on. Small donors are ramping up their giving to Democrats because they’re aware of how nuts the Republican Party has become on issues ranging from abortion to democracy. Trump has pulled into the GOP white supremacists, Christian nationalists, QAnon paranoids, xenophobic cultists, antisemites, misogynists, and rightwing militias. Plus a StarWars cantina of grifters, crackpots, and thugs who — as the January 6 attack showed — pose a clear and present danger to American democracy. Big donors are ramping up their giving to Republicans because they now have so much money that any Democratic-led tax increase on them (or Republican-led tax cut for them) will invariably have large financial consequences. The Inflation Reduction Act reveals just how much damage Democrats could do to the bottom lines of the rich. Many big donor billionaires (e.g., Peter Thiel) are trying to justify their donations as “libertarian,” but they know damn well the current Republican Party has nothing to do with personal freedom. It’s busy intruding on reproductive rights, pushing book bans in libraries and classrooms, barring young transgender people from playing on certain sports teams or using certain bathrooms, refusing to allow teachers to talk about aspects of American history they don’t want young people to know, and actively suppressing votes. Liberty my foot. No, the billionaires aren’t libertarian. They want only one thing: more tax cuts. The extraordinary growth of small donors to Democrats is all about justifiable fears of what Republicans will do with more power. The growth in big dollars to Republicans is all about greed. What do you think?