Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has burned up $11.1 million of the $11.2 million he raised across July, August, and September, with no progress in the polls to show for it and donors increasingly reluctant to throw good money after bad.
New filings show a campaign running out of firepower, with almost $6 million spent in July, with a precipitous drop to $3.8 million in August, followed by a crash to $1.3 million in September.
They also show DeSantis’s campaign operation, which once boasted by far the biggest staff in the GOP race, is still being slashed, with 90 people on the payroll in summer, compared to 63 by the end of September.
The Florida Governor’s penchant for private jet use appears to have been eating up even more more than payroll costs, however, with payments to N2024D LLC, IsraJets, Empyreal Jet, Silver Air Private Jets, Advanced Aviation Team, and Avion Aviation making over $1.5 million from him.
While the campaign boasted of having raised $15 million last quarter, this pales in comparison to Trump’s $45M haul, and electoral rules mean only $5M of the DeSantis cash can legally be used in the primary, with the rest held in reserve for a potential general election battle.
