The 2024 presidential campaign for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Tuesday it cut a third of its staff as the camp struggled to keep expenses down.
The cuts were confirmed by campaign advisers and will eliminate 38 positions. Recent federal filings indicate the campaign had upwards of 90 staffers by the end of June.
Two senior DeSantis campaign advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain have already left the campaign. The pair, along with some other staffers, plan to work at pro-DeSantis groups outside of the main campaign.
“Following a top-to-bottom review of our organization, we have taken additional, aggressive steps to streamline operations and put Ron DeSantis in the strongest position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden,” DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck said in a statement. “Gov. DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we’re ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”
The campaign announced in early July it managed to raise an impressive $20 million during the second quarter of 2023; however, it has reportedly already spent a sizable portion of the amount, according to US media. Additionally, many of DeSantis’ largest donors have already reached the maximum amount allowed by law, meaning they cannot be counted on to refill the governor’s coffers.
At a donor retreat last week, Peck said that the campaign would work to cut expenses by focusing on smaller, more intimate events.
Other senior staffers are being shuffled around in the shakeup, including Cody Hall, who currently serves as the campaign’s chief technology officer and will now also be serving as its chief financial officer.
24 February 2023, 00:53 GMT
Among those let go by the DeSantis campaign is communications staffer and speech writer Nate Hochman, who recently found himself in hot water after sharing a post on X (previously Twitter) on Monday in which the Sonnenrad/Black Sun Symbol was superimposed behind DeSantis’ face. The symbol is used by Neo-Nazis and the Azov Battalion* in Ukraine.
The campaign confirmed that Hochman was one of the staffers who was let go and said they would offer no further comment.
*Azov Battalion is a terrorist organization banned in Russia