Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday fired his campaign manager as he struggles to close the gap in the US Republican presidential primary on former President Donald Trump, AFP reported.
James Uthmeier, the candidate's longtime chief of staff in his day job in Tallahassee, will replace Generra Peck in the role. The move is the latest of a number of unofficial campaign reboots with the candidate languishing almost 40 points behind Trump in polling averages.
Trump has continuously achieved good numbers in polls, even after his recent indictments. A New York Times/Siena College poll published earlier this month found that Trump is leading DeSantis by a landslide 37 percentage points nationally among the likely Republican primary electorate.
The shake-up comes in the wake of DeSantis firing more than a third of his staffers, with aides acknowledging overspending amid a series of negative headlines over the 44-year-old governor's policies and awkwardness with voters.
Uthmeier joins the team alongside a second appointment, longtime Iowa Republican operative David Polyansky, as DeSantis and his rivals hope for a breakout moment in the first debate on August 23, which Trump has suggested he may skip. Peck will stay on as a strategist, according to AFP.
"We are excited about these additions as we continue to spread the governor's message across the country. It's time to reverse our nation's decline and revive America's future," said DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo.
DeSantis officially launched his presidential campaign in May, but the launch was anything but smooth. The Florida Governor made the announcement in a Twitter Spaces conversation with the social media network’s owner, Elon Musk, but was derailed by massive technical glitches.
The technical glitches were enough for rivals on both sides to troll DeSantis.
US President Joe Biden’s official Twitter account used the opportunity to ask for contributions to his reelection campaign.
“This link works,” Biden tweeted, with a URL linking to his donation page.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the so-called Squad, also mocked DeSantis, responding to entrepreneur David Sacks' claim that the initial audience for DeSantis' Twitter chat broke the internet.
"We had more people join when I played Among Us," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter, referring to the name of a video game.
Trump also took aim at the Florida Governor, writing on his Truth Social platform, “Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH.”