DeSantis Drama: How Paranoia and Leaks Led to Super PAC Meltdown

Jeff Roe, the top consultant for Ron DeSantis’s super PAC, quit abruptly Saturday night in the most high-profile exit from a star-crossed presidential election effort marred by infighting and paranoia.

Roe is the sixth person to leave the independent Never Back Down political action committee – three have been fired; three have quit – in the past four weeks as the once-mighty PAC has been riven by internal disputes and friction with the Florida governor’s presidential campaign.

“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Roe wrote in a post on X at 10:37 p.m. Saturday that featured his exit statement in which he quoted Martin Luther King: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

The behind the scenes story of how DeSantis' Super PAC fell apart while the candidate struggled is a cautionary tale of the limits of outsourcing a presidential campaign to an independent political committee, and it highlights the difficulties of runnning against former President Trump in the Republican primary. For this report, The Messenger interviewed a dozen DeSantis insiders, who paint a picture of an effort filled with distrust and turmoil, less than a month from the Iowa caucuses.

Roe’s resignation comes less than a month before the Jan. 15 Iowa Caucus and was prompted by a Washington Post expose detailing the intrigue, leaking and backbiting in the super PAC between consultants affiliated with Roe’s national consulting firm, Axiom, and Florida-based DeSantis loyalists.

DeSantis aides dismissed Roe’s Saturday night statement and his participation in the article as self-serving blame-shifting to cover up the underperformance of Never Back Down and its leaks to news operations in Washington and New York, which DeSantis derisively calls “Acela Corridor media.”

At the center of the friction with Roe: Never Back Down’s new chairman, attorney Scott Wagner, a Miami attorney and Yale University classmate who’s a political appointee of DeSantis’s on the South Florida Water Management District.

Just before the Never Back Down shakeups and waves of departures began late last month, Roe and Wagner had tussled over money and strategy at a Nov. 14 board meeting. The exact cause of that confrontation is in dispute, but multiple source tell The Messenger it was ultimately the result of a power struggle and personality clash between Roe and Wagner. Neither would comment on the record.

The DeSantis campaign has distanced itself from the independent political committee and downplayed the importance of Roe, noting that Never Back Down has been stabilized after the resignations and firirings.

Still, the Roe resignation capped a month-long damaging and dysfunctional news cycle where operatives and allies of the Tallahassee-based campaign and Atlanta-based PAC have mutually accused each other of leaking damaging stories that in turn produce more rough stories for DeSantis.

“This is what dying looks like,” said one dismayed DeSantis donor who did not want to be identified on the record along with 10 others who described the inside drama to The Messenger that has unfolded in recent months. “This looks like a simple personality clash, but it’s not ultimately Scott v. Jeff.”

Indeed, the two men represent fundamental divide in DeSantis’s election effort that was built into its structure from the start: “Axiom vs. House DeSantis,” as one insider described it.

The Florida team, mostly based in Tallahassee, had almost no experience running a presidential campaign, but they increasingly began to criticize Never Back Down’s ad-buying strategy. They theorized that that Axiom’s data-based analytic approach to constantly measuring the effectiveness of ads essentially ensured that the commercials never seemed to stay on air long enough to have an impact with voters.

Never Back Down officials, however, faulted the Florida-based loyalists for knowing nothing of presidential politics and came to believe the campaign and those in the governor’s circles in Tallahassee were blaming others for DeSantis’s failures against Trump, who's crushing the governor in polls everywhere, including Iowa, where DeSantis has spent the most time and trails Trump by about 30 percentage points.

‘FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS’?

In a written statement, DeSantis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo said DeSantis is focused on winning on the presidential election and dismissed Roe’s resignation and related chatter as meaningless.

"We’re not going to be distracted by more false narratives coming from unknown sources with harmful agendas,” Romeo said. "This campaign has always been a movement bigger than any one individual, and team DeSantis is currently firing on all cylinders as we focus on the broader mission of saving our party and country. We appreciate the independent efforts of our outside partners at NBD as they are building a historic ground game for the fight ahead.”

Never Back Down reported raising more than $130 million as of July and it has spent more than any other this cycle, yet DeSantis has only declined in the polls against Trump, who cheered the Saturday night drama.

“Jeff Roe is out — GAME OVER for DeSanctimonious. MAGA,” Trump, who insists on misspelling and mispronouncing DeSantis’s name, wrote on his Truth Social media website.

Trump has long disliked Roe, who has represented Republicans Trump hasn’t supported. For a year, the former president and his backers have gleefully predicted that Roe would have a falling out with the prickly DeSantis, whom Trump loathes even more.

Distrust with Roe and his team pervaded DeSantis’s campaign effort in Tallahassee, which has always been paranoid about leaks and information control and where operatives were dismayed to see outlets like the Washington Post work so closely with Never Back Down.

That tension was only intensified by the fact that super PACs are not allowed to privately coordinate messaging with federal campaigns under federal law. So as not to break the federal prohibition on coordination, the PAC had to publicly send messages to the super PAC by issuing memos and press statements to favored media outlets about the direction they wanted Never Back Down to go.

“THE ‘GODFATHER’ THING”

Unlike DeSantis’s campaign managers, Roe had presidential experience. He masterminded Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign that won the Iowa Caucus and was the last standing against Trump before he went on to win the primary and then general election.

A month before DeSantis won his reelection by a historic margin of nearly 20 percentage points, he had personal talks with DeSantis about coming aboard to lead his presidential campaign, a knowledgeable source said. Polls soon showed DeSantis beating Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.

Roe was ultimately placed at the super PAC partly at the urging of Adam Laxalt, the former Nevada attorney general who used Roe as a consultant in his unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign last year.

Laxalt, who roomed with DeSantis when they were in naval officer training as young men, expressed interest in managing DeSantis’s presidential campaign or being its senior adviser before it launched in May, sources say. But DeSantis wanted his presidential campaign managed by his 2022 gubernatorial campaign manager Generra Peck.

Laxalt became chair of Never Back Down instead and Peck signed off on Roe and his full-service national firm, Axiom, running the super PAC.

But Peck still didn’t trust Roe, sources said. Peck and her close friend, DeSantis 2022 adviser Phil Cox, had a rival consulting business, GP3, to Roe’s Axiom. Cox was opposed to Roe coming aboard.

Roe’s skillset and the backing by Laxalt made it impossible for Peck to not want to try to use him, those sources said. Peck kept two other Cruz campaign vets, Jason Johnson and Sam Cooper, were kept at the campaign.

“She wanted to do the ‘Godfather’ thing: ‘keep your friends close but your enemies closer,’ so she signed off on Jeff and created the structure where Jeff would be able to help DeSantis and not hurt him,” said a DeSantis donor familiar with the organization.

“Jeff knows what he’s doing. He’s very smart. So it seemed like a good call at the time.”

But as the campaign wore on, Peck became increasingly displeased with leaks and wondered aloud if “the Cruz people” were to blame.

Peck stepped down as presidential campaign manager in August when the campaign she built ran out of money and had to lay off staff. She was replaced by DeSantis’s chief of staff, James Uthmeier, who also had no presidential campaign experience. David Polyansky, a top Iowa operative who worked for Roe’s Axiom and Never Back Down, left the super PAC to be a deputy campaign manager.

THE LEAKS BEGIN

Later that month, before the first presidential debate, The New York Times reported that Roe had posted a debate memo for DeSantis on Axiom’s website. DeSantis was displeased with the leak, in part because the memo showed how desperate his situation had become and because DeSantis is paranoid about leaks.

To get around the coordination ban between campaign and super PAC, Never Back Down had been routinely posting information on Axiom’s website for anyone to see, including the memo, according to a source. But none of the correspondence had leaked until that point.

Campaign officials privately blamed Never Back Down for the leak. Never Back down blamed the Tallahassee-based campaign, noting the memo had been last accessed by a computer IP address in Tallahassee. It was a sign of the toxicity to come.

“Never Back Down’s position was that the campaign was an absolute disaster,” said one official with the super PAC. “It was broke. It couldn’t be the campaign. So we had to do everything for it.”

That sentiment was both received and resented in Tallahassee, where the governor a month before had sent up a smoke signal in a July 16 Fox News interview where he tried to prod Never Back Down to start advertising on his behalf.

“We have a PAC, I can't control it, but I imagine they're gonna start lighting up the airwaves pretty soon with a lot of good stuff about me and that's gonna give us a great lift,” DeSantis said. “So we look forward to that.”

With direct coordination banned, Never Back Down heard indirectly from intermediaries that DeSantis wanted the group to advertise in New Hampshire on TV. The move was resisted by Never Back Down because its determined it would be a waste of money, but under internal pressure from the Florida members of the operation, the PAC spent $2.5 million on TV that ultimately did nothing for DeSantis over the summer.

The ineffectiveness of the ad buying was lost on DeSantis’s campaign, but the “we know better” attitude from Never Back Down rankled DeSantis, according to one source.

As DeSantis devoted more time to running for president, he fell further behind in the polls, which had been breaking more Trump’s way ever since he was hit with the first of his four separate criminal indictments, starting in April, that caused many Republicans to rally to him.

The campaign and candidate liked the on-the-ground organizational effort from Never Back Down in Iowa – which was widely praised for its professionalism – but the DeSantis campaign began getting increasingly restless with the PAC’s advertising efforts, angry that that former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who was once written off as insignificant by the DeSantis campaign, was topping him in New Hampshire polls and nearly tying him in Iowa.

“YOU HAVE A STICK UP YOUR ASS”

The DeSantis campaign and the candidate began raising more questions privately about how the super PAC was spending its money, $82 million of which came from unspent funds in a state political committee DeSantis used during his reelection.

On Nov. 14, the DeSantis loyalists made their move at a meeting in Atlanta.

Wagner began asking Roe pointed questions about advertising, spending and analytics, according to sources familiar with the discussions. They said that fellow Florida-based board members Adrian Lukis and Tre Evers backed Wagner up. On the non-Florida side of the meeting sat board members Laxalt and Director Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general and Trump immigration official who founded Never Back Down.

Joining the meeting for the first time: David Dewhirst (DeSantis’s senior adviser in the governor’s office and was in talks to join Never Back Down as general counsel) and DeSantis’s former communications director, Taryn Fenske (who left the governor’s office in June to work at Never Back Down and better represent DeSantis’s interests).

The Florida crew began questioning why ads attacking Haley were taken down, sources said. “Analytics,” they were allegedly told: the ads didn’t work.

Wagner started to question whether the analytics were wrong or misapplied by a gunshy operation that so overly protective of its brand that it didn’t want to be identified with negative advertising.

“Well, let’s start another super PAC, then,” Wagner said, according to one source familiar with his remarks.

There was resistance from the non-Florida team. And Roe soon seethed at Wagner.

“You have a stick up your ass,” Roe sneered, according to NBC News, which first reported the exchange later confirmed by The Messenger.

“Why don’t you come over here and get it?” Wagner, his voice rising, said as he began to stand up.

Wagner has denied reports that suggested he almost got into a fistfight with Roe.

Shortly after the meeting, Dewhirst formed a new super PAC called Fight Right, which was then given a $1 million transfer from Never Back Down to finance TV ads attacking Haley, a move approved by the Florida-based DeSantis loyalists at Never Back Down, led by Wagner.

MORE LEAKS, MORE DRAMA

On Nov. 21, the new anti-Haley ad was reported on by NBC News, which bothered the Florida faction who suspected it was leaked by others at Never Back Down.

The following day, on Thanksgiving eve, the outlet reported on the clash between Wagner and Roe as well as the objection Cuccinelli had to the new super PAC, stating in an email to the board that the “manner” of the anti-Haley ad “and its funding … is exceedingly objectionable to me.” At that point, Never Back Down C.E.O Chris Jankowski quit, which the New York Times first reported almost in real time.

The leaks and resignation infuriated DeSantis and his loyalists more.

Then, Dec. 1, The New York Times reported another Never Back Down departure: Laxalt, who had quit five days before. Wagner took over as chair.

More anger from the DeSantis team followed. The next day, DeSantis held what was supposed to be a triumphant press event in Iowa, where he marked visiting the last of Iowa’s 99 counties.

But later that afternoon, on Dec. 2, news broke in Politico that Wagner had fired Never Back Down CEO Kristin Davison, communications director Erin Perrine and field organizer Matthew Palmisano. Phil Cox, longtime ally of former DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck, then joined Never Back Down, according to Politico.

The abrupt termination of the three officials blotted out the good news of DeSantis’s Iowa visit but, sources said, was tied to an ongoing Associated Press report about whether the campaign and PAC were violating campaign finance laws by coordinating (both deny any laws were broken). The story ran Tuesday.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, began asking questions of Never Back Down concerning all of the drama.

In responding to the publication, Wagner accused the laid off employees of “mismanagement and conduct issues” and he blamed them for the “numerous unauthorized leaks.” But an attorney for Axiom who represents the three consultants sent Wagner a letter threatening legal action for the statements, according to the Post, which reported that Wagner slightly hedged his statements.

Roe then went on record with his resignation, saying that “I cannot in good conscience stay affiliated with Never Back Down given the statements in the Washington Post today. They are not true and an unwanted distraction at a critical time for Governor DeSantis.”

Though the departure ushered in yet another round of negative headlines, Roe indicated he still supported the governor.

“I wish the Governor, First Lady, and their entire team the best through the rest of the campaign,” he wrote.