Republicans nationally had a lackluster Midterm cycle in 2022, flipping just nine seats in the U.S. House while failing to secure a majority in the Senate. The party has to recalibrate if it wants to turn things around by the 2024 Presidential Election, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has recommendations for what needs to be done.
In an interview that aired Thursday on The Charlie Kirk Show, DeSantis detailed three changes he’d like to see.
Stop rewarding ‘the consultant class’
First, he said, the Republican Party must stop “lining the pockets of so many (political) consultants” and instead use much of the money it pays them to instead support strong GOP candidates. Republican campaigns paid more than $186.2 million to consultants during the 2022 election cycle, while Democrats paid consultants $90.6 million — 8.7% and 4.8% of the total spent by each party, respectively, according to OpenSecrets.
Despite paying consultants twice as much as their opponents, Republicans fared only slightly better. That’s evidence a different tack is needed, DeSantis said, citing his landslide re-election victory in November as an example.
“When we ran our election, we had our digital in-house, we’ve got a great fundraising team, we have all this, but we’re not giving commissions to people. We pay them a salary. You do a good job, I want to pay you. I want you to do well,” he said.
“But you can’t have incentives to where the campaigns and the operations are run with an eye to putting more money in the pocket of the consultant class. And obviously, they’re very powerful in D.C., so I think if we (should) get away from that, have more transparency.”
Win back the trust of the GOP voter base
DeSantis, who voiced support Thursday for former Donald Trump adviser Harmeet Dhillon to supplant Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, said the GOP must work to regain the faith of its voter base.
He pointed to his success in building fervent support among his base in Florida since 2018, when he won by a razor-thin, 32,463-vote margin. Just over four years later, he’s one of the front-runners for the Republican nomination for President in 2024 (though he hasn’t yet announced plans to run).
“One of the reasons why we did well (in Florida) is because our base voters knew, ‘Governor’s going to do the right thing. I trust that he’s got our back.’ There’s not a lot of trust between the grassroots and the RNC up in D.C.,” he said.
That lack of organizational trust is evident during fundraising, he continued.
“(When) I’d raise money for the Republican Party of Florida, we would do good. But if I did a fundraising for me instead of for the party, we’d raise much more money because they trust the people that they see doing the job.
“When you start talking about Republican Party apparatus, a lot of our voters are like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know about that.’ So, we need to restore that trust, because ultimately you want to have an organization that’s going to be able to help in a lot of these key races.”
Play the game by the rules that exist, not the ones you wish existed
If Republicans nationwide want to win like Republicans in Florida, DeSantis said, they’ve got to pass laws to crack down on disadvantageous election tactics.
That means eliminating things like “ballot harvesting” — where one person or group collects and delivers absentee ballots for others — and massive out-of-state contributions he calls “Zuckerbucks,” a reference to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s donation of $419 million in grants to help fund cash-strained election departments across the country during the pandemic.
Both are now illegal in the Sunshine State thanks to sweeping new election restrictions lawmakers passed last year. Republicans in every other state should push for the same, DeSantis said. But if it’s still legal and Democrats are doing it, Republicans need to take advantage of the lax rules as well.
“You’ve got to exploit the rules as they exist. So in Nevada, if it’s legal, Republicans need to have a ballot-harvesting operation in these rural counties. I would do Zuckerbucks in these places. I think Zuckerbucks is corrupt as hell, but if it’s legal and the Democrats are doing it, why aren’t we doing it?” he said.
“Fight for whatever election reforms you think matter — and I would say ban ballot harvesting; do all that — but if it’s not banned, you need to do it, because otherwise we’re fighting with one hand tied behind our back.”
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