- Ron DeSantis completed his campaign reset by replacing his campaign manager.
- DeSantis elevated, James Uthmeier, who leads his governor’s office to right his presidential campaign.
- Uthmeier has no campaign management experience. He is now tasked with engineering a virtually unprecedented comeback.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday completed the full-scale reboot of his once-promising presidential campaign, reassigning his campaign manager and elevating a loyal hand from his governor’s office.
The news comes just weeks before the GOP field will face off in the first presidential primary debate in Milwaukee, a chance to reverse a summer that has seen DeSantis, Trump’s best-positioned challenger, slip dangerously far behind former President Donald Trump in national polling.
Like every reset — DeSantis insists it’s a “reload” — the real question remains on if DeSantis waited too long to execute the retooling. Past presidential cycles are littered with candidates who tried to fix things only to be washed out. Both President Trump and President Joe Biden ended their first successful runs with new campaign managers, but their experiences, especially Trump’s, are an exception to the rule.
James Uthmeier, DeSantis’ chief of staff in Tallahassee, will now lead his campaign, news first reported by The Messenger. DeSantis’ former campaign manager Generra Peck, who also led DeSantis’ midterm reelection romp, will remain as a chief strategist. Peck had been the subject of multiple reports questioning the direction of the Florida Republican’s campaign.
As The Messenger pointed out, Uthmeier has no campaign management experience. DeSantis’ new deputy campaign manager will be David Polyansky, who has run a string of successful campaigns in Iowa, home to the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
“James 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,” DeSantis Communications Director Andrew Romeo said in a statement. “David Polyansky will also be a critical addition to the team given his presidential campaign experience in Iowa and work at Never Back Down.”
Uthmeier’s elevation comes after the DeSantis campaign laid off more than a third of its staff that once boasted more than 90 people. The Florida Republican has also become more reliant on his super PAC, Never Back Down, effectively using it as a de facto campaign as he tours around Iowa. The governor has also granted more interviews with mainstream media outlets after a long stretch of almost exclusive appearances on conservative networks.
DeSantis’ campaign has also been slammed for its at times bizarre strategy, including releasing a Pride Month video that even some conservatives labeled as openly “homophobic,” and tripling-down on a Florida policy about slavery education that drew the ire of a legion of African-American Republicans.
The ultimate question remains if the actions came too late.
DeSantis trails Trump by 38 points in FiveThirtyEight’s weighted national average. While pundits often dismiss early polling, FiveThirtyEight found that a review of 40 years of data shows that can be predictive and becomes even more so as we reach the second half of the year before state primary and caucuses begin. Even more concerning for the former governor is that he is also lagging behind Trump in Iowa, a key early state.
The reality, as Politico summed it up recently, is that a DeSantis comeback this large and an accompanying Trump collapse would be unprecedented.