Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting the presidential ambitions of Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis, who is currently angling for his party’s presidential nomination for 2024, has ended its door-to-door campaign efforts in several states that are early on the calendar of individual states’ primary contests. That list includes Nevada, California, North Carolina, and Texas, as recapped in NBC News.
Several of those states will hold their nominating contests on Super Tuesday, a point in the primaries when a huge number of delegates will be at stake on the same day, creating a make-or-break moment for many campaigns. Among the issues cited by a figure close to the group were looming changes in the handling of these states’ nominating contests that could benefit Trump. The California Republican Party has set changes into motion that would mean a candidate who passes 50 percent of the vote in the primary results from the state gets the entirety of the state’s delegates for the party’s eventual nominating convention, which is not how it’s done in every state, though allocations in the electoral college are, in fact, winner-take-all.
Never Back Down is still continuing its door-to-door work in several other early (in presidential primary terms) states, including Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Erin Perrine, a spokesperson for the super PAC, called the rules change in California a “Trump-inspired rigging,” though DeSantis is still slated to speak at an upcoming gathering of the state GOP. The winner-take-all approach means it’s more difficult for candidates lagging somewhat behind to make inroads.
Polling once showed DeSantis massively leading Trump in California, but since the southeastern governor formally announced his campaign for president, his standing in surveys has essentially only continued to suffer. He once nearly passed Trump nationally in an average of polling done at that level maintained by FiveThirtyEight, the data and analysis site. He’s since sunk dramatically, ending up within single digits of Vivek Ramaswamy, the antagonistic businessman at just nine percent. DeSantis has faced intense criticism from Trump and the former president’s corner of the GOP as the governor has sought the presidential nomination, suggesting his political future once his current term as governor is over could be in jeopardy if he doesn’t win.
