Ron DeSantis Replaces Campaign Manager Generra Peck – Rolling Stone

Ron DeSantis has replaced his campaign manager as his bid to topple Donald Trump continues to falter.

The Florida governor has reassigned Generra Peck, replacing him with James Uthmeier, his chief of staff. The move, which was first reported by The Messenger, comes amid a series of changes DeSantis hopes will breathe life into this fledgling campaign. He fired 38 staffers, about a third of his campaign, late last month, a few weeks after two of his top advisers left to join a separate pro-DeSantis group. He’s also shifted his media strategy to include interviews with mainstream outlets like CNN and NBC News, which he had previously eschewed in favor of the refuge offered by right-wing networks.

It isn’t working. DeSantis is trailing Trump by nearly 40 points, according to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, and it doesn’t seem like he has the juice to make any sort of comeback.

Rolling Stone reported in July that some of the governor’s biggest donors are pissed over his fixation on internet culture wars, with one of them saying he’s “out” if the campaign doesn’t stop “blowing money on fucking memes.” They were also not entirely pleased with his campaign “reboot,” instead calling for a total overhaul. “A top-to-bottom makeover and real accountability may be the only thing that saves Ron DeSantis [in the primary], but even then you still have the governor at the top,” said one top GOP donor backing DeSantis. “And it is getting harder and harder by the day to see not just his people as the problem, but him as the problem.” 

DeSantis admitting he’s the problem would mean ending his campaign, which leaves him with no other option than rearranging the deck chairs on a campaign that has been foundering as Trump tightens his grip on the party. He’s done so in part by attacking DeSantis relentlessly since the latter announced his campaign, while DeSantis has largely refrained from going after the former president. He’s been so deferential to the man he’s trying to defeat that he only recently mustered the wherewithal to admit that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, acknowledging to NBC News on Monday that Trump lost “of course.”

DeSantis has been reeking of desperation for a while now, and so the move to replace Peck with Uthmeier isn’t surprising. Peck hasn’t been ousted entirely, though. DeSantis is keeping him on a chief strategist.