‘A total failure to launch’: Why Ron DeSantis was doomed from the start

Muddled messages, hiring too many staffers and even a puzzle — how it all went wrong for Ron DeSantis' presidential bid.

Iowa was supposed to be make-or-break for Ron DeSantis. 

The Florida governor essentially moved his campaign there late last year, and Never Back Down, his allied super PAC, spent tens of millions of dollars knocking on doors in the state. 

“We’re going to win Iowa,” DeSantis declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Dec. 2. 

But in the week before the all-important caucuses, Scott Wagner, the recently installed head of the super PAC, was doing something that aides found puzzling: He was literally doing a puzzle. 

In the headquarters of Never Back Down in West Des Moines, Iowa, Wagner was, according to some of his staff, spending a significant amount of time in the precious final few days constructing a peaceful 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of a landscape.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-campaign-doomed-puzzle-rcna132688

---