Ron DeSantis is running on fumes

The end may be near.

(Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis)

Two things happened this week that tell you everything you need to know about the current state of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 campaign.

1. He announced that he had raised $15 million in the third quarter of the year, and had a paltry $5 million in the bank left to spend.

2. The campaign announced that it was moving roughly a third of its staff from its Tallahassee headquarters to Iowa.

This was spun by the campaign as a very good thing. Here’s how the New York Times framed it:

The relocation completes a monthslong retooling of Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, which was in dire financial straits this summer — with delayed bills and unpaid invoices piling up — and had to do two rounds of mass firings in order to remain solvent.

Top campaign officials said they had stabilized the situation, thanks to the $15 million infusion from donors that came in the third quarter, from July through September.

This is not, in fact, a very good thing.

DeSantis $15 million is a) less than he raised in the 2nd quarter (he brought in $20 million during those three months) and drastically less than the $45 million that Donald Trump’s campaign raised over the last three months.

That disparity is even more clear when you look at cash on hand; Trump has $36 million left to spend in the primary. DeSantis has less than 1/7th that amount.

That would be a problem if Trump and DeSantis were running neck and neck for the nomination. It is a catastrophe when DeSantis is running 40+ points behind Trump.

DeSantis backers will note that his super PAC — Never Back Down — has almost $100 million in the bank (as of August), more than enough to buoy his efforts in the final months of the race.

Maybe! But, to date, DeSantis’ unique setup — the super PAC runs all but the most basic functions of his candidacy — has not worked out as well as his advisers imagined. And there’s no guarantee that that will change.

Then there is the decision to deploy a large number of DeSantis’ staff to Iowa.

When DeSantis became a candidate, the pitch he offered donors and activists was that he was the only person in the Republican field who could compete with Trump across the country — not just in a single state like Iowa or New Hampshire.

This, from early May, outlines the initial ambitions of the DeSantis campaign:

The super PAC promoting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to have dozens of staff in place in the first 18 states on the Republican presidential primary calendar in the coming weeks, a move indicating that his expected 2024 announcement is drawing closer…

…“We are ahead of the game in expanding our operations outside of the first four primary states as the energy behind Governor Ron DeSantis to run for President and defeat Joe Biden in 2024 continues to grow,” [DeSantis super PAC spokeswoman Erin] Perrine said in a statement.

The message being sent was simple: DeSantis was building a campaign for the long haul. He was going to fight Trump not just in Iowa or New Hampshire but on Super Tuesday — and beyond.

All of that grand strategy is now out the window. DeSantis, whether his campaign wants to admit it or not, is now a single state candidate. It’s Iowa or bust.

Even in that, the DeSantis campaign is trying to manage expectations, however. The campaign said last month that finishing second in Iowa (presumably to Trump) would be good enough for the Florida governor.

“We believe it’s already a two-person race,” a DeSantis campaign official told Politico at the time. “But the reality is, on the ballot there are other choices, and our goal is to get this down to a two-person race on the ballot, especially as we head into South Carolina and beyond into March.”

Uh, no.

The ONLY path now available for DeSantis is to upset Trump in Iowa — and hope that springboards him into contention in New Hampshire.

Right now at least, DeSantis looks to be a declining commodity in the Granite State. In a Boston Globe poll released earlier this week, Trump leads the field with 49% followed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at 19% and DeSantis at 10%. That’s broadly consistent with other data out of New Hampshire in which DeSantis has slipped to third place.

Without a MAJOR boost from an Iowa win, DeSantis looks like an also-ran in New Hampshire. And, failing to win either Iowa or New Hampshire — assuming Trump wins both — means the race is effectively over.

The real question for DeSantis at this point is whether he can make it to Iowa. While his campaign had several high profile staff blood-lettings, it remains one of the biggest operations in the race. (Remember that it was initially built to compete with Trump for months of the nominating process.)

And big operations cost money to maintain. While the super PAC can pick up a bunch of the costs, it can’t pay for everything. Which raises questions about whether DeSantis has enough money to make a real go of it in Iowa.

My guess? The DeSantis super PAC should be able to keep the campaign alive until the Iowa caucuses in January. But, that’s it. If he loses Iowa, the campaign ends.

It’s a remarkable come down from the big vision that the DeSantis campaign began with, a shrinking of its scope and breadth that now leaves him a narrow path to have even a chance at competing for the nomination.