Ron DeSantis super PAC halts door-knocking efforts in Nevada, Super Tuesday states

A super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential run has ended door-knocking efforts in one key early-voting state and three Super Tuesday states, officials confirmed to The Post Thursday.

Never Back Down closed down its political canvassing operations in Nevada, California, North Carolina and Texas over the past few weeks, after having pledged to spend $100 million to promote DeSantis.

The shutdowns were first reported by NBC News.

“We want to reinvest in the first three,” said Never Back Down spokeswoman Erin Perrine, referring to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. “We see real opportunities in the first three. The first three are going to set the conditions for the March states.”

South Carolina has long been recognized by Republicans as the third primary state to vote for an eventual nominee, but Nevada’s GOP announced earlier this month it would move its caucus ahead of the Palmetto State.

“Uh… Nevada is in the first 3?” Make America Great Again Inc. spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, in response to Perrine’s remarks. “Never Back Down has some serious issues if they don’t even know the primary calendar.”

Nevada Republicans have set their caucus for Feb. 8, 2024, while the South Carolina GOP scheduled its primary for Feb. 24.

More than 250 field staff had been employed in the four states before operations ended, according to NBC.

Thursday’s news follows a series of summer shakeups in the DeSantis campaign, climaxed by the laying off of dozens of staffers and the replacement of his campaign manager amid persistent rumors of overspending.

On Super Tuesday, March 5, 13 states will hold their Republican presidential primaries or caucuses: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia.

A day earlier, DeSantis’ main primary rival, former President Donald Trump, is due to appear in Washington, DC, federal court for the start of his trial on charges that he attempted to unlawfully overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

The Nevada GOP, which was sympathetic to Trump’s fraudulent election claims, has since filed a lawsuit after the Democratic-controlled legislature adopted a state-run primary system.

Republican leaders say the change was made without putting in certain voting integrity measures, such as enforcing voter ID and doing away with same-day registration and mail-in ballots.

A local judge ruled against the Nevada Republican Party, but they have since appealed to the state Supreme Court. 

“When you have that kind of uncertainty about how the election’s going to be conducted, that becomes a pretty unstable environment to be investing the kind of resources that we’re investing,” Perrine told The Post, referring to Nevada GOP chairman Michael McDonald as a “Trump puppet.”

Currently, the state-organized Nevada Republican primary is set for Feb. 6, while the party-organized caucuses are scheduled for two days later.

McDonald told The Post in response to Perrine that the primary changes were not intended to give any candidate the upper hand but to push back against Democratic efforts to undermine election integrity.

“I’m nobody’s puppet, never have been, never will be. I’m too old to be a puppet,” McDonald said. “This isn’t about President Trump, this isn’t about DeSantis … this is about bringing it back to Nevada voters.”

McDonald was one of several Trump allies federally investigated this year for being part of an alleged fake elector scheme meant to reverse the former president’s electoral loss.

Perrine noted that there was a “similar situation in California,” where new rules will allow the primary candidate with the most votes to be awarded all 169 state delegates, or a proportion of them equal to their statewide voter tally.

Delegates were previously awarded through a tally of primary votes in each of the Golden State’s congressional districts.

“When they changed it to a proportional, statewide winner-take-all, that completely eliminated the opportunity for grassroots campaigning,” Perrine said, adding that it was a “Trump-inspired rigging.”

“And so with neither state having a fair process, the door knockers that were in Nevada and California, we decided to make them kind of refocus into the first three,” she added, repeating: “The first three are going to set the conditions for the March states.”