Top figures from the 2016 presidential campaign of Ted Cruz have reportedly signed on to an effort to help Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis beat 45th President Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Sparking more comparisons of the current Republican political climate to that of 2016, key personnel involved with the 2016 campaign are back in the ring with Trump, this time backing DeSantis, despite the former president dominating most polls.
A new report by Yahoo News this week has revealed that longtime Republican operative Jeff Roe, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and grassroots organizer David Polyansky have joined the pro-DeSantis “Never Back Down” super PAC designed to help the Florida politician beat Trump to the Republican nomination.
Sen. Ted Cruz speaks to supporters at Central Park Hall at Tulsa’s Expo Square. (SX021020) – Michael Bates / Flickr
The news came shortly after Roe, who worked for Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign as the Texas Senator’s chief strategist, and has remained close with Cruz in the intervening years, denied that he would work for DeSantis’ campaign as early as this month, telling Yahoo it was “fake news.”
Cuccinelli, a supporter of Cruz, once prayed with Cruz’s father on the convention floor in 2016 just before the nomination was given to then-candidate Trump. Supporters of the former President believe Cuccinelli was behind the plot to strategically secure delegates for Cruz – even when the campaign lost the vote – to provoke a fight on the convention floor in 2016.
Polyansky had once worked as the Texas Senator’s chief of staff in 2016, with Cruz boasting that his “leadership, expertise and judgment were critical to our presidential campaign.”
Yahoo News noted that all three men “have the rare experience of having already worked for a top Trump target in a Republican primary,” adding that the “question now is whether they can draw on that experience — the failures, the successes, the lessons learned — in order to beat Trump next year.”
“Their time in the trenches fighting for Cruz could be all that more valuable as the former president attacks DeSantis, another 40-something conservative policy wonk and Harvard-educated lawyer, in explicitly personal terms,” reported Yahoo News.
The former president last week appeared to take a swipe at Roe and his Never Back Down colleagues for boosting DeSantis despite the Florida Governor’s lackluster performance in recent polling.
“Ron DeSanctimonious’ Political Consultants are failing to rescue his sinking ship,” Trump posted on Truth Social one day after news broke of Roe’s involvement with Never Back Down. “He can’t move without them, it takes him forever to make a decision, and they’re charging him and his Globalist Donors a fortune.”
Trump has repeatedly linked the Florida Governor to Washington neoconservatives and old guard Republicans like former House Speaker Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and the late Senator John McCain.
President @realDonaldTrump gets big applause in Iowa after he me vows to protect social security and ethanol, two things Paul Ryan’s disciple Ron DeSantis opposes.
🔥🔥🔥
(Paul Ryan was also booed) pic.twitter.com/dKu4RTCDgy
— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) March 13, 2023
“People are tired of RINOs and globalists; they want to see America first. That’s what they want. It’s not too complicated,” Trump said in his 2023 CPAC speech earlier this month. “The Republican party was ruled by freaks, neocons, open border zealots and fools. We’re never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush.”
Valiant News reported yesterday that DeSantis, a freshman member of Congress at the time, once revealed the most “inspirational” person he ever met was former President George H.W. Bush.
The video of DeSantis’ remarks appears to have been recorded in springtime of 2013, a few months after DeSantis swore in to serve the citizens of Florida’s 6th district.
JUST IN: Video emerges of Ron DeSantis telling young reporter the most inspirational person he met is Bush 41..
THOUGHTS?
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) March 26, 2023
“Inspirational person that I’ve met…hmm. I don’t know, that’s a tough one. I’m trying to think who and kinda modern times. I mean, part of the thing when, you know, when you’re grown up and you’re a blue collar kid, I didn’t really get to meet a lot of people,” DeSantis said.
“And then even in Congress now, I’ve only been there for four months. I mean, I guess I would probably say Bush 41,” the then-Congressman clarified.
Follow Andrew on Twitter @whiteaf5.
