Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis raised $15 million in the third quarter to stabilize his 2024 Republican presidential nomination campaign, The New York Times reported.
The Times also said the DeSantis campaign will focus its attention on Iowa, where Jan. 15 caucuses will kick off the GOP primary season.
The newspaper reported that about a third of the governor's presidential campaign staff will be relocated from Tallahassee, Florida, to Des Moines, Iowa — a sign that the state will have a make-or-break effect for DeSantis in his attempt to defeat former President Donald Trump.
Team DeSantis hopes a victory in Iowa's caucuses will inspire enough voters to rally around the governor and see that Trump is beatable, the Times said.
"We are redeploying many of our assets so we can further take the fight directly to Donald Trump in Iowa," said David Polyansky, DeSantis' deputy campaign manager, the Times reported.
The Trafalgar Group polling results late last month showed Trump with a near 33-point lead over DeSantis in the Republican race. That was before the second GOP debate.
The former president has skipped both debates between Republican candidates. DeSantis, meanwhile, gave two solid performances that reassured donors.
DeSantis' third-quarter financial haul was raised via three committees: his main presidential campaign account, a PAC, and a fundraising committee that feeds into the previous two accounts.
That came after the campaign was forced to take a series of cost-cutting measures during the summer.
DeSantis' campaign manager, James Uthmeier, said in a statement that the third-quarter fundraising performance "shuts down the doubters who counted out Ron DeSantis for far too long."
The DeSantis campaign entered October with $13.5 million in available cash, the Times reported, although some of that money had not yet been transferred to the campaign account.
DeSantis aides told the Times that only $5 million of those funds are eligible to spend in the primary season. The campaign has left advertising, and most other campaign operations, to well-funded super PAC Never Back Down.
Never Back Down was financed chiefly by a $82.5 million cash transfer from DeSantis' state committee. The super PAC is barred by campaign finance laws from coordinating strategy with either the governor or his campaign team.
DeSantis' campaign employs 56 people overall. In Iowa, a staff of four will grow to nearly two dozen, the Times said.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.