DeSantis super PAC ran through $34 million, recent filings show

The super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis spent nearly $34 million in recent months, pouring money into voter outreach, advertising, polling, consultants and other expenses as his standing in the polls steadily slipped.

Newly released financial filings show that the super political action committee, Never Back Down, had nearly $97 million in cash on hand at the end of June, vastly more money than other Republicans in the race, including the front-runner, former President Donald Trump.

But that haul may end up being a high-water mark. Since the close of the filing period, some top Republican donors have begun backing away from DeSantis as his campaign has foundered, according to two people familiar with the candidate’s and the super PAC’s fundraising.

At the same time, the super PAC is spending aggressively — particularly on a sprawling voter contact operation in the early states. Super PACs are independent committees that can accept unlimited contributions from donors in support of a candidate but cannot coordinate with the campaign itself.

DeSantis and his allies, however, are testing the limits of the campaign finance system.

Never Back Down isn’t just supplementing the campaign’s work; it has taken over nearly every aspect of the DeSantis campaign — staging events that the candidate attends as a “special guest,” running a bus tour through Iowa and paying people to knock on voters’ doors to sell them on the virtues of DeSantis.

It remains unclear whether DeSantis’ allies will be able to continue to raise the large sums of money required to sustain this gargantuan effort.

His campaign has already fired more than one-third of its staff to cut costs, and his super PAC is bearing even more of the burden of his daily operation.

The filings showed that the super PAC had received donations of more than $1 million from just seven wealthy Republicans, or firms connected to them. One of those donors, Saul Fox, also gave money to a super PAC supporting Trump.

Officials with the group falsely exaggerated the strength of their early fundraising, records show. They publicly claimed at the end of March that they had brought in $30 million; the filings show the actual amount was just under $23 million.

The super PAC did not reach $30 million until almost two months later, the week that DeSantis formally became a presidential candidate. An official with the group did not explain why they had initially provided a misleading number.