In Utah Friday, Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis defended his campaign’s large staff, which topped out at 92 people before cuts earlier this month.
A big part of it, he told reporters, was the campaign eschews “consultants” in favor of “in house” employees, which he said actually saves money.
“First of all, we don’t do consultants. So we do everything in house. So yes, some people would not have some of the people we have, but they’d also be paying a lot more money for the consultants who charge a lot,” DeSantis said, calling it a “different model of doing more in house than doing consultants.”
“You know, you can raise money online, which we’ve done very well at,” DeSantis added. “Do you want to give 10% of the cut to somebody when you’re doing that? No, we’d rather pay salaries for people to perform a function.”
The Governor soon enough changed subjects, saying “all that stuff is background noise.”
DeSantis’ burn rate is notable. He raised more than $20 million in the first six weeks of the race, with $8.2 million raised in the first 24 hours. However, he spent nearly $8 million, giving him $12.2 million on hand at the end of the second quarter. Roughly a quarter of that sum can’t be used for the Primary.
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