Ron DeSantis' Latest Staff Shakeup Is Part of a PatternTime, Jul 24, 2023
Last week, the Florida governor fired roughly a dozen staffers and offloaded two top aides to a pro-DeSantis super PAC, signaling a campaign reset amid an existential crisis: He’s failed to meet fundraising goals, burned cash at an alarming clip, and has been faltering in the polls. If things don’t turn around soon, there may be more layoffs, according to sources familiar with the matter, who say that donors are exasperated with the campaign’s underwhelming performance thus far.
Yet the latest staff shakeup isn’t an anomaly within the arc of DeSantis’ career. It’s part of a larger pattern of a politician who has struggled to maintain a core group of trusted advisers or loyal employees.
During his five years in Congress, his office had one of the highest turnover rates in the House. No employed member from his victorious 2018 gubernatorial campaign team is working in a senior role on his 2024 presidential race. And things didn’t change when he became governor. In his first term, he fired staffers with enough regularity that some formed an emotional support group, according to a 2021 Politico report. Now, DeSantis is shedding staff only two months into his bid to beat out former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.
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Yet those who’ve worked with the Florida governor before expect staff turnover to continue to plague his presidential bid. They say he has never been one to forge lasting emotional bonds with people who work for him. “The same struggle that he has with voters, he has with staff,” another Republican operative familiar with the DeSantis campaign operation tells TIME. “When things start to sour, it’s easy for staff to either leave on their own volition, or it’s easy for the boss to ultimately cut staff loose. There are no personal connections there.”
One person who has been at DeSantis’ side through every campaign is his wife Casey, who has a heavy influence over his political strategy. That dynamic has led some to doubt that any staffing changes can truly reorient the campaign when it will always be the two of them calling the shots. “His top advisor comes with the house,” the source close to DeSantis says. “It’s his wife. There’s no firing his spouse. The idea that DeSantis can do a reset is a complete fallacy.”
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https://time.com/6297153/ron-desantis-staff-shakeup-history/
