DeSantis changes his campaign team to try to come back in the polls for the Republican primary

The problems do not stop in the campaign of the Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. At least for now. The Florida governor continues in the polls at a stark distance from the favorite in his party, former President Donald Trump, and has not yet found a way to close the gap. He had already had to restructure his team in July ―just two months after its launch―, and now he is doing it again: he has replaced his campaign manager, Generra Peck, with what until now was his chief of staff as governor, James uthmeier.

Peck had been the target of criticism in some circles close to the campaign for blame for their candidate’s difficulties in rising in the polls. But he will not leave the team: the financial, logistical and personnel management will remain in the hands of his replacement; she will occupy the position of head of strategy.

“James Uthmeier has been a top adviser to Governor DeSantis for years and 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”, the US president, in the November 2024 elections, indicates a statement from the campaign of the Florida politician.

DeSantis had thrown himself into the electoral arena in May after months of rumors and amid great anticipation. The great political gurus predicted a favorite role for him in the primaries of his party. The reasoning was that Trump, the big Republican star, could take the hits from the tenure-related court cases he faces, from allegations of violating espionage law to conspiring to rig the election result in 2020. And the governor from Florida had all the credentials to overshadow him: a very conservative program to the taste of the toughest Republican voters, an impeccable personal history, youth and a family that seems to have been taken from a television commercial.

But it has not been that way. Far from losing points, the former president has been establishing himself in the polls with each imputation. And DeSantis isn’t quite connecting with the Republican public outside of Florida. For Trump’s critics, he ends up being nothing more than a younger copy of the former tenant of the White House. Supporters of the former president already opt for the original version.

DeSantis, during a Republican party rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 28. SCOTT MORGAN (Reuters)

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The result is that the campaign has consumed an enormous amount of money, but the polls are still stubborn: the average of the main polls calculated by the Real Clear Politics page shows almost forty points of distance between the two candidates. A 53% voting intention for Trump, a mere 15% for DeSantis.

According to the documents of the Federal Electoral Commission, cited by the ABC network, the governor’s campaign began to hire collaborators when it debuted. In the first stage of fundraising, 92 workers participated. In the first six weeks he consumed eight million dollars. An amount that, according to the television station, the candidate’s own team decided had been excessive.

The relief in the campaign comes when De Santis tries to change his strategy. To the criticisms that describe him as a distant politician, he wants to respond with smaller events and more personal treatment, to try to show himself close to the voters. He has also tried to distance himself from Trump, whom he had avoided criticizing since his entry into the electoral arena.

But this week he has for the first time clearly refuted Trump’s claims that he was the one who won the 2020 election and that there was voter fraud. “Of course he lost,” he said in an interview on NBC. “Joe Biden is the president.”

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