Ron DeSantis’ biggest donors flee as major Florida paper trashes him

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) faces three big problems as he returns to the Republican presidential campaign trail, fresh off of handling Hurricane Idalia’s damage to his home state: He’s lagging far behind in the polls, many of his biggest donors have refused to give to his campaign, and one of Florida’s biggest newspapers just called him a threat to the entire country.

A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that 59% of Republican voters support former President Donald Trump as their preferred presidential candidate — only 13% felt the same about DeSantis.

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DeSantis’ campaign says it’s focused on winning the Iowa Republican caucus vote on January 15, 2024; the first major vote in the GOP primary. However, an August poll from The Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa found that 42% of the state’s Republican voters support Trump, and only 19% support DeSantis.

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Even worse for DeSantis, some of his biggest past donors have opted not to give to his current campaign. Of the top 50 donors who gave $160,000 or more to his 2022 gubernatorial reelection campaign, only eight have donated to his campaign, and only 16 have donated to his super PAC Never Back Down, Politico noted. Five who gave to his super PAC also donated money to his GOP presidential rivals.

One of his biggest past donors, hotel and aerospace executive Robert Bigelow, told Reuters that he wouldn’t donate unless DeSantis adopted more moderate policies and showed “that he’s able to generate more [contributions] on his own.”

His biggest donors have also complained about DeSantis’ signing of a hardline six-week abortion ban, his retaliation against Disney for opposing his “Don’t Say Gay” law, and his calling Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute.”

DeSantis’ campaign claims that the donors’ reluctance is proof that his values can’t be bought. But he depends heavily on his PAC to fund his basic campaign functions, and a majority of the $97 million it has on hand came from the $82 million it had left over from his 2022 gubernatorial re-election campaign.

Meanwhile, The Miami Herald, one of Florida’s largest papers, published an editorial on Tuesday criticizing him for using “the power of government to assault the freedoms of anyone he and his supporters consider different.”

“Black people, gay and trans people, and immigrants have all felt the unmistakable hostility of the state,” the editorial began. “In his pursuit of a far-right record that could outstrip Donald Trump’s, DeSantis has systematically — during five years in office, with a lockstep Republican Legislature — turned Florida into an unwelcoming place for many.”

“As DeSantis runs for president, voters across the country only have to look at Florida to understand what he’s pushing. Divisiveness. Anger. Marginalization of anyone who might not be white, Christian, straight or whose family doesn’t go back generations in the United States,” it continued.

Indeed, Equality Florida, the NAACP, and the Florida Immigrant Coalition have all issued travel advisories telling queer people, Black people, and immigrants not to visit Florida. Several major conventions are now avoiding the state and Disney has killed a $1 billion development plan for central Florida.

“What’s going on in Florida isn’t a left-versus-right thing. It’s a right-versus-wrong thing,” the editorial board added. “Going after various groups of people to push them out of public life isn’t about liberalism or conservatism. It’s about denying them human dignity and human rights. DeSantis, though, specializes in dread and fear. So far, he has been restricted to one state. Imagine what he would do if he exported his vision to the whole country.”