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grits-galraisedinthesouth · 9 months

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DeSantis Latest Relaunch to Save Failing Campaign

"James Uthmeier has zero campaign political experience, he is a lawyer with specific economic and legal skills related to his former job at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce where he served as legal counsel. Given the nature of the reason for the Wall Street Sea Island group to support the 2024 DeSantis operation, having a multinational advocate in the role of campaign manager oddly does make sense. There are trillions at stake."

Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, said in a statement that allowing Uthmeier to take a leave of absence is “a blatant middle finger to the people of Florida — who’s actually going to run the state while he’s gone? It’s certainly not Ron.” Fried had previously filed ethics complaints against Uthmeier and Kopelousos for allegedly soliciting donations from lobbyists and lawmakers for DeSantis’ presidential campaign.

Generra Peck is out just weeks after advisers said her job was secure.

By GARY FINEOUT 08/08/2023

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Ron DeSantis has replaced his campaign manager, Generra Peck, in what is the third major reshuffling of his operations, a campaign spokesperson and a person familiar with the move confirmed to POLITICO.

Peck will be shifted to a role of chief strategist as part of the new order. Taking her place atop the campaign will be James Uthmeier, who has served as chief of staff in DeSantis’ governor’s office. In a text message, Uthmeier said the change was happening “ASAP.”

The move comes just weeks after the DeSantis campaign and close advisers insisted that Peck’s job was secure, even after the team shed a third of its staffers amid a budget crunch and concern about the direction of the operation.

The governor’s team pledged to scale back, build an insurgent operation, and do more mainstream media outreach. They’ve done all that. But the results have yet to be reflected in the polls.

One person close to the campaign, who was granted anonymity to freely discuss the issue, said that Peck’s removal, which was first reported by The Messenger, was “no surprise. Should have happened a few weeks ago.”

DeSantis’ campaign spokesperson, Andrew Romeo, also confirmed the staff moves in a statement, saying that “Uthmeier has been one of Governor DeSantis’ top advisors for years and he is needed where it matters most: working hand in hand with Generra Peck and the rest of the team to put the governor in the best possible position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden.”

He added that David Polyansky, who worked with Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, will also move to the campaign.

One person familiar with the shake-up said that Uthmeier, who had conducted a review of campaign operations before the switch, has the “trust” of DeSantis and his wife, Casey, and is also well-regarded by campaign staff. This person, who was not authorized to speak about the matter, said there was “managerial angst” with Peck who had “lost [the] confidence” of the campaign team.

The person also described Uthmeier’s role as “CEO” of the campaign but who will rely on David Polyansky —and Marc Reichelderfer, a veteran political consultant from Tallahassee — as “senior vice presidents” with national campaign experience.

Ryan Tyson, a well-regarded pollster, is also expected to have an elevated role in the campaign.

Uthmeier has served as DeSantis’ chief of staff since October 2021 and worked as the governor’s general counsel before he became his top aide. He has been involved in some of the governor’s most high profile initiatives, including the controversial program to transport migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last year.

Uthmeier also worked as a senior adviser to former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross but his background is primarily in legal work and not in running political campaigns.

Uthmeier is taking an unpaid leave of absence from the administration to work on the campaign and is not resigning permanently from his job as chief of staff, according to the governor’s office.

Alex Kelly, a former top deputy to DeSantis who was recently appointed to be the secretary of the Department of Commerce, will step in as acting chief of staff while Uthmeier works with the campaign, which operates out of an office building in Tallahassee.

This is not the first time that DeSantis — whose inner circle is very tight — has leaned into people who worked for him in the governor’s office to help with his presidential aspirations.

In early July, Stephanie Kopelousos, the governor’s long-time legislative affairs director, left to work for the DeSantis campaign while Taryn Fenske, the governor’s communications director, departed to work for Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis.

It was Peck who tried to reassure donors and supporters during a retreat held late last month in Utah. During the event, she acknowledged that the campaign had spent too much money ramping up its operation and that the campaign would turn to a leaner “insurgent” posture.

Since that time, DeSantis has been relying on smaller campaign events — some of which are being done in concert with Never Back Down — while also sitting down for interviews with mainstream media outlets. This week, for example, DeSantis did an interview with NBC News just months after a top spokesperson in office said they were boycotting the network.

DeSantis: 2020 election theories ‘did not prove to be true’

Fried had previously filed ethics complaints against Uthmeier and Kopelousos for allegedly soliciting donations from lobbyists and lawmakers for DeSantis’ presidential campaign.

Despite polls showing him trailing former President Donald Trump, DeSantis has vowed to plow ahead in the early states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

While brushing aside some of his poll numbers, DeSantis told NBC News this week that “I would much rather be underestimated” when asked about some of the problems with his campaign so far.

From The Messenger

Outgoing campaign manager Generra Peck will remain as chief strategist on the campaign as part of the restructuring. Peck guided DeSantis’s blowout reelection bid last year, but she quickly became the subject of criticism from DeSantis advisers and donors in mid-July after his presidential campaign stalled and money dried up.

The campaign then twice cut staff and expenses and retooled DeSantis’s press strategy to make him more available to the mainstream media.

But donors and some outside advisers weren’t satisfied, leading DeSantis last week to ask Uthmeier to diagnose problems with the campaign and see if he could fix them. Ultimately, it led the governor to ask Uthmeier to take the job.

Uthmeier shies away from calling the reshuffling a “reboot.” It’s a despised word in the campaign, where advisers prefer to call this the last campaign “reload” -- and they're going to win, despite the naysayers and early polling.

“People have written Governor DeSantis’s obituary many times,” Uthmeier said in a written statement to The Messenger. “From his race against establishment primary candidate Adam Putnam, to his victory over legacy media-favored candidate Andrew Gillum [in 2018], to his twenty point win over Charlie Crist [in 2022], Governor DeSantis has proven that he knows how to win. He’s breaking records on fundraising and has a supporting super PAC with $100 million in the bank and an incredible ground game. Get ready.”

Joining Uthmeier as a deputy campaign manager will be David Polyansky, an experienced Iowa operative who boasts of never losing a Republican presidential primary in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. Polyansky is currently an adviser to the pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down. He spent extensive time with DeSantis this month on his repeat visits to the first-in-the-nation state, which is crucial to DeSantis’s chances against frontrunner Donald Trump.

The campaign’s senior adviser and pollster, Ryan Tyson, will have an elevated role along with Marc Reichelderfer, a seasoned political operative and Tallahassee lobbyist who is currently advising the campaign.

Replacing Uthmeier in the governor’s office as acting chief of staff will be Alex Kelley, who is currently Florida’s Secretary of Commerce. Kelley will work side-by-side with David Dewhirst, who was hired last month as an adviser in the governor’s office and was the former solicitor general of Montana and deputy attorney general in Idaho.

Uthmeier and Peck have been close allies ever since the governor’s reelection campaign. As chief of staff, Uthmeier was actively engaged in raising money for DeSantis’s presidential campaign. In a written statement, Peck pledged help DeSantis notch a comeback win against Trump.

“Governor DeSantis is running one of the most aggressive early state campaigns in modern history,” Peck said. “Our organization welcomes the best of the best and James is one of my closest colleagues and friends — we are better for his joining and providing day to day leadership. This team is built to last and built to win.”

At 35 with no campaign management experience, Uthmeier has risen in the ranks of the governor’s office to become the top political and policy adviser to DeSantis. A member of the conservative Federalist Society legal group with DeSantis, Uthmeier began serving as deputy legal counsel after DeSantis was first sworn into office in Tallahassee in 2019 and was soon elevated to chief legal counsel before becoming chief of staff in the fall of 2021.

Over the years, Uthmeier earned a reputation in Florida political circles as the governor’s always-on-offense conservative fixer. He has had a key role in nearly every conservative and controversial policy that built the DeSantis brand with conservatives.

Uthmeier led DeSantis’s legal efforts to prohibit local government mask mandates, ban private business vaccine passports and reopen schools quickly in response to COVID. That earned DeSantis national condemnation from health experts and widespread negative mainstream media coverage but the support of Florida voters, who went on to reelect him by his historic margin in 2022. It also propelled him into the top tier of GOP presidential contenders.

Uthmeier also helped direct the controversial effort by DeSantis to redraw Florida’s congressional maps and eliminate a Black-held congressional seat. He also helped recruit legislative and school board candidates favorable to DeSantis’s conservative pro-business tax-cutting agenda.

During the fight over Florida’s law limiting the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms, Uthmeier managed the state’s strategy to remove Disney’s special treatment under Florida law, earning DeSantis more criticism and legal challenges. Closely involved in the establishment of the governor’s Faith Office, which liaises with numerous state agencies, Uthmeier helped ensure that the “heartbeat bill” 6-week abortion ban made it through the legislature.

That abortion legislation recently led DeSantis’s biggest contributor, billionaire Robert Bigelow, to announce he would no longer fund the governor’s presidential campaign if he didn’t moderate. Bigelow has contributed a total of $30 million toward DeSantis’s reelection and presidential campaign efforts.

Almost as important as gaining DeSantis’s trust, Uthmeier is also a top ally of First Lady Casey DeSantis, who plays an outsized role as the governor’s eyes and ears and his campaign trail surrogate. Uthmeier took a keen interest in her “Hope Initiative” to help lift people out of poverty, which she talks about on the campaign trail.

One senior campaign staffer described Uthmeier as “loyal, honest, and a true believer in the conservative principles that Governor DeSantis fights for. Over the years, James has earned the governor's trust and confidence — and the team enjoys working with him. He is exactly the right person to manage this campaign so we can help Governor DeSantis win the White House and save our country.”

Last week, Uthmeier took time off from his government job to lead the review of the state of the campaign at headquarters in Tallahassee, where he worked alongside Florida’s first lady reviewing strategic plans and interviewing staffers about what changes need to be made. DeSantis’s policy director, Chris Spencer, also took time off in a volunteer capacity and reviewed the finances of the campaign.

The DeSantis campaign’s financial problems only became apparent to the candidate and broader campaign in the final days of the financial quarter ending July 1. Though DeSantis hauled in a sizable $20 million in his first quarter of fundraising, it masked structural issues with his campaign’s high burn rate because of extensive private jet travel and a huge staff of more than 90.

In mid-July, the layoffs began in waves, instead of all at once. That led to a steady drip of negative media coverage – from the financial problems, to staffers who created a controversial homophobic (yet strangely homoerotic) web ad and then another created by another staffer that used Nazi imagery. In both cases, the campaign initially and falsely denied its staffers created the videos.

Peck offered to resign late last month at a donor retreat in Utah where some DeSantis advisers began criticizing her to the governor. Casey DeSantis, who is also close to Peck and appreciated her hard work and loyalty, balked, according to two sources.

“If you talk to Generra, she’ll be the first to tell you that she made mistakes.,” said a donor who attended the Utah meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Messenger to freely discuss the campaign. “She admitted her mistakes and lots of people appreciate that honesty. I like her. I think she’s great. But this is the NFL. This is about winning.”

In a press release issued after publication of this story, DeSantis communications director Andrew Romeo said that “Uthmeier has been one of Governor DeSantis' top advisors for years and he is needed where it matters most: working hand in hand with Generra Peck and the rest of the team to put the governor in the best possible position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden. David Polyansky will also be a critical addition to the team given his presidential campaign experience in Iowa and work at Never Back Down. We are excited about these additions as we continue to spread the governor's message across the country. It's time to reverse our nation's decline and revive America's future."

#ron desanctimonious #ron desantis #Dishonest DeSantis #florida #RNC #jill casey black pga #Casey DeSantis #never back down #iowa #new hampshire #south carolina #N2America #Generra Peck

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