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House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) re-election campaign quietly cut ties in late October with its fundraising consulting firm, Fundraising, Inc. The Republican-aligned fundraising company is a subsidiary of Jeff Roe’s Axiom Strategies. Shortly after winning the Speakership, Johnson was told by several House Republican colleagues — at the urging of Trump campaign aides Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles — that it would be prudent to end his campaign’s use of Roe-affiliated companies. The departure of Johnson as a client of a Jeff Roe-controlled campaign firm is a significant blow to the high-profile Republican political consultant and Axiom Strategies. Meanwhile, some...

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) seems to have disappeared from the airwaves in early primary states despite his commitment to stay in the 2024 race. After losing to former President Donald Trump in the Iowa Republican caucuses Monday, coming in a distant second, DeSantis does not have any ads running in New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Nevada, according to ad tracking services. Not only has his campaign apparently gone silent, but the various super PACs supporting his 2024 bid have also vanished from television in the early nominating states.

On the menu today: The cover piece in the newest issue of National Review has Ron DeSantis fans grumbling that it’s far too early for such a gloomy assessment of his campaign because not a single vote has been cast yet. Fine, but to believe that DeSantis has a shot of winning Iowa, we need to believe that his support is at least 15 percentage points higher than his highest numbers in recent polling and that Donald Trump’s support is at least 15 percentage points lower than his lowest numbers in recent polling. (If you simply take DeSantis’s best number...

Asked for his thoughts about the resignation of Jeff Roe from Never Back Down over the weekend, DeSantis told reporters, “I’m not involved in any of that.” “As you guys know, it’s a separate entity and so it’s just … this stuff just happens, and it’s not in my purview of what’s out there,” DeSantis continued. He later added, “It’s not a distraction for me … I know media may want to do it but at the end of the day, I’m focused on the mission.” Roe’s resignation from Never Back Down came hours after a Washington Post report shared...

Jeff Roe, longtime Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) consultant and chief architect of his flailing political operation, resigned Saturday from the super PAC charged with realizing the governor’s increasingly quixotic presidential aspirations. Roe announced his departure hours after a damning Washington Post report on the collapse of Never Back Down (NBD), the super PAC Roe conceptualized to send DeSantis to the White House and usher in a new era of super PAC-driven presidential campaigns. The Post report comes after five senior officials, pre-dating Roe’s departure, left NBD since late November and three others with Roe’s firm were fired. The Post writes...

NEW YORK (AP) — The top strategist for the embattled super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ‘ campaign for the White House resigned Saturday night in the latest sign of trouble for the GOP hopeful less than one month before voting begins with Iowa’s kickoff caucuses. Jeff Roe, the top adviser to Never Back Down, is the latest senior staffer to exit Never Back Down, which has been the largest outside group supporting DeSantis’ candidacy. He announced his departure on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, hours after The Washington Post published a story focused on internal disputes...

Jeff Roe, a top strategist for the main super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, announced his resignation from the group late Saturday — the latest in a string of departures from the organization.The pro-DeSantis group, Never Back Down, has been enveloped in turmoil in recent weeks. Two weeks ago, it fired three of its top officials, including the super PAC’s chief executive officer. The board chairman, former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, also left, as did the organization’s president, Chris Jankowski.Republican strategist Phil Cox, a longtime DeSantis ally and adviser, has stepped in to help steer the PAC in...

Good Times · Chic (1979)

The top strategist for the embattled super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ' campaign for the White House resigned Saturday night in the latest sign of trouble for the GOP hopeful less than one month before voting begins with Iowa’s kickoff caucuses. Jeff Roe, the top adviser to Never Back Down, is the latest senior staffer to exit Never Back Down, which has been the largest outside group supporting DeSantis’ candidacy. The Associated Press reported earlier this week on growing concern among some within DeSantis’ operation that interactions between his campaign and his network of outside groups were blurring...

Concerns regarding the DeSantis campaign’s coordination with the pro-DeSantis Super PAC Never Back Down–which has come under scrutiny in recent months as DeSantis fails to make a dent in former President Donald Trump’s lead in the Republican primary race–are increasing.There have been reports of infighting within Never Back Down and tensions between the PAC, which has spent $43 million on ads this year, and the campaign as DeSantis has failed to make any dent at all in Trump’s lead since the governor’s May launch.A September post in Vanity Fair details how Never Back Down’s chief Jeff Roe and the DeSantis...

Tensions are rising and tempers are flaring among backers of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the governor’s presidential campaign continues to fail in its efforts to trounce former President Donald Trump. Leaders of the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down super PAC reportedly met in November to discuss the dire state of affairs for the presidential hopeful, as former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ramps up her efforts in Iowa and New Hampshire — dropping $10 million — in hopes of improving her standing in the polls. [CUT] “You have a stick up your ass, Scott,” Never Back Down chief Jeff Roe...

Chris Jankowski stepped down Wednesday, just days after a brawl nearly broke out at one of the super PAC’s group strategy meetings as the Sunshine State governor has sunk in GOP primary polls. Never Back Down board member and DeSantis confidante Scott Wagner reportedly had to be physically restrained from going after one of the group’s political consultants, Jeff Roe, the founder of Axiom Strategies. The Florida governor and his wife, Casey DeSantis, have grown increasingly frustrated with Never Back Down’s leadership, according to the outlet. The super PAC is no longer running ads in Iowa amid concerns that voters...

Chris Jankowski, the CEO of the PAC that has been footing the bill for much of DeSantis' bus travel around key battleground states, stepped down Wednesday, days after a group of other DeSantis allies announced the creation of a separate PAC, called Fight Right Inc. The move follows an account of vicious infighting between factions of DeSantis backers, NBC reported. Jeff Roe, the leading consultant for Never Back Down, reportedly got into a 'heated' argument with DeSantis advisor Scott Wagner during a budget meeting. a source told the network, in a stunning account of how the two men 'nearly came...

Leaders of Ron DeSantis' Never Back Down super PAC met privately last Tuesday to hash out a strategy for fighting Nikki Haley's rise. Instead, two of them nearly came to blows with each other. The infighting represents an escalation in the long-running war between Never Back Down's professional political operatives and DeSantis’ Tallahassee-based inner circle over who is to blame for the governor’s failure to compete effectively with frontrunner Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. And, after tempers flared at last week's meeting, three close DeSantis allies — David Dewhirst, Jeff Aaron and Scott Ross — launched a second super...

'Do one in Naples, one in Marco Island. You know, whatever you need to do.' Back in Iowa Saturday morning, Ron DeSantis said he wanted snowbirds visiting the Sunshine State to be able to vote without going back home. The 2024 presidential candidate told supporters in Muscadine that he wanted caucus sites in Southwest Florida. “But I do know with so many people that go down in Florida, I have to figure out — I may petition the Iowa Republican Party to have some caucus sites in Southwest Florida,” the Governor quipped. “So people could just go, I mean, do...

The Republican National Committee (RNC) threatened to prevent GOP presidential candidates from taking part in future party-sanctioned debates if they engaged in an open-press event in Iowa next week, drawing backlash from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Prior to the agreement over the format of the forum, in an Oct. 28 letter to the respective presidential campaigns the RNC Counsel's Office said that any candidate who participates in the Nov. 17 Des Moines event would violate their pledge to not participate in non-RNC-sanctioned primary debates. "The Forum is NOT a debate," he wrote in a post to X. "Thus, the RNC...

Sen. Ted Cruz hinted that he may be running for president again in the future and said not to count Gov. Ron DeSantis out of the presidential race. 'When I ran in 2016, the most fun I've ever had in my life. And we came incredibly close to winning,' he told DailyMail.com in an interview. While Trump is far ahead in the polls, Cruz predicted the race is still up for grabs.

The Trump campaign has trolled DeSantis relentlessly for his super PAC's warning ------------------------------------------------------ LONDONDERRY, N.H. — The top adviser to a super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign gave the Florida governor 60 days to beat Trump in August. Sixty days later, during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, DeSantis acknowledged that wasn’t a “very smart thing to do.”Never Back Down chief Jeff Roe said in August that DeSantis needed to beat Trump in “the next 60 days,” according to audio from a meeting of Never Back Down super PAC donors. In the months since, the Trump campaign has sent...

Was all of this worth it, Ron? Was it worth selling your soul to the devil Jeff Roe because you thought you could buy the presidency? He has you on a leash and walks you like a dog. Maybe you're into that type of stuff. pic.twitter.com/t3wz9ZMtPb— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) October 24, 2023