(TheLastPatriotNews.com) – The presidential campaign of Ron DeSantis, once deemed the most viable 2024 GOP nomination rival to Donald Trump, has announced mass layoffs in what is construed as an “awful lot of trouble.”
The DeSantis campaign is slashing about a third of staffers, or 38 jobs in total, Politico reports, as cited by The Daily Caller.
Among those axed are campaign advisers Tucker Obenshain and Dave Abrams, whose departure was reported earlier, alongside ten event planners.
“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,” Campaign Manager Generra Peck declared 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,” she added.
The report notes the mass layoffs come after the Florida governor began shifting his campaign strategy due to worsening polling numbers.
The Real Clear Politics polling average presently has DeSantis’ support among Republican voters at 18% compared with over 30% in January.
The polling average shows Trump’s popularity at 52.3%, while the third spot is tied between former Vice President Mike Pence and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump’s lead on his next closest GOP rival is at least 40%, according to Rasmussen Reports, Morning Consult, and Harvard-Harris polls.
“Team DeSantis has lit tens of millions of dollars on fire. In return, DeSantis has seen a collapse in polling. The people left to suffer are a few dozen low and mid-level staffers. If Ron actually cared about spending the money wisely, he’d refund every dollar he has left and go back to governing Florida, which is what he was elected to do,” reacted Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for Trump’s Super PAC “Make America Great Again Inc.
Meanwhile, Fox News hosts Bret Baier and John Roberts have compared the DeSantis campaign to the failed presidential campaign of one of his Florida governor predecessors, Jeb Bush.
“DeSantis says he’s going to hold smaller scale events in earlier states and engage more with the mainstream media, which would dovetail into the idea… but that’s an awful lot of trouble for a campaign that’s barely two months old,” Roberts quipped.
