Never Back Down Inc. is a single-candidate

Super PAC Independent expenditure-only political action committees, better known as super PACs, are a type of political action committee (PAC) in the United States. Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs are legally allowed to fundraise unlimited amounts of m ...

which supported

Ron DeSantis Ronald Dion DeSantis (; born September 14, 1978) is an American politician, attorney, and former United States Navy, naval officer serving as the 46th List of governors of Florida, governor of Florida since 2019. A member of the Republican Pa ...

in his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. According to

OpenSecrets OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks and publishes data on campaign finance and lobbying, including a revolving door database which documents the individuals who have worked in both the public sector an ...

, the Super PAC raised $145,709,450.

Description

Never Back Down began as a Super PAC to draft Ron DeSantis to compete for the Republican presidential nomination. It was established by

Ken Cuccinelli Kenneth Thomas "Cooch” Cuccinelli II ( ; born July 30, 1968) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Pa ...

in February 2023. Cabell Hobbs was its treasurer, and Republican

political consultant Political consulting is a form of consulting that consists primarily of advising and assisting political campaigns. Although the most important role of political consultants is arguably the development and production of mass media (largely televi ...

Jeff Roe was the Super PAC's chief strategist. It reportedly raised $30 million between March 9 and April 3 2023, but later filings showed they had only raised $23 million, primarily from Robert Bigelow. As of April 3, 2023 the Super PAC also employed Republican

and strategist Jeff Roe. By May 24, New Back Down had reportedly raised $40 million and was being "helm d by Roe, with Chris Jankowski as its

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Adam Laxalt Adam Paul Laxalt ( ; born August 31, 1978) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 33rd Nevada Attorney General from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's unsuccessful nominee for governor of Nevad ...

as its chairman, and Kristin Davison as its

chief operating officer A chief operating officer (COO), also called chief operations officer, is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the C ...

. At the end of June 2023 the group and had receive donations of over $1 million from seven donors and had $97 million

cash on hand Working capital (WC) is a financial metric which represents operating liquidity available to a business, organisation, or other entity, including governmental entities. Along with fixed assets such as plant and equipment, working capital is consi ...

, including $82.5 million which had been transferred from Empower Parents PAC, DeSantis' state-level PAC. The

Campaign Legal Center Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is a nonprofit, non-partisan 501(c)(3) government watchdog group in the United States. CLC supports more restrictive United States campaign finance laws. Trevor Potter, former Republican chairman of the Federal Elect ...

filed a complaint with the

Federal Election Commission The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent agency of the United States government that enforces U.S. campaign finance laws and oversees U.S. federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Campaign ...

in December 2023 which argued that the transfer of funds from the state committee violated the

Federal Election Campaign Act The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA, , ''et seq.'') is the primary United States federal law regulating political campaign fundraising and spending. The law originally focused on creating limits for campaign spending on communicati ...

. CEO Chris Jankowski resigned his position on November 22, 2023 after disagreements on strategy with Roe and Scott Wagner, a board member of the organization, and was replaced by Davison. Laxalt resigned as chairman on November 26 and was replaced by Wagner, while Roe resigned on December 16. Davison was fired as CEO after holding the position for nine days, and was also replaced by Wagner.

Activities

In May 2023 Never Back Down outlined a plan to spend $200 million in support of DeSantis candidacy and planned to have a staff of 2,600 field organizers active by

Labor Day Labor Day is a Federal holidays in the United States, federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday of September to honor and recognize the Labor history of the United States, American labor movement and the works and con ...

, which was described by the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' as "an extraordinary number of people for even the best-funded campaigns". By August 2023 the ''New York Times'' reported that the Super PAC " asn'tjust supplementing the campaign’s work; it adtaken over nearly every aspect of the DeSantis campaign." The ''New York Times'' reported in February 2024 that Never Back Down spent $130 million on DeSantis' campaign, which OpenSecrets reports a total expenditure of over $145 million.

References

{{reflist United States political action committees Ron DeSantis