ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A UFO-obsessed Las Vegas real estate magnate and a husband and wife who used to back former President Donald Trump’s political ambitions are among a group of wealthy donors and Florida-based businesspeople that are helping prop up Gov. Ron DeSantis’s bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
The information comes from an FEC filing late Monday night by Never Back Down, a Super PAC raising and spending tens of millions of dollars to support DeSantis. The filing reviewed by 10 Tampa Bay shows the committee has more than $96 million cash on hand to start July, spending nearly $33 million on the race thus far.
Super PACs can raise unlimited amounts of money from donors.
10 Tampa Bay spoke with Never Back Down founder Ken Cuccinelli who says the large majority of funds has been on advertisements and building a ground game in early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
"We have built the biggest ground game running in the election," Cuccinelli said. "We also spent about $15 million dollars running positive ads for Governor DeSantis. Those the big chunks so far. And I'm a grassroots guy, I really appreciate the build. We've crossed a million doors by building out that grassroots and I'm hopeful we'll cross 2 million before Labor Day."
The large majority of the $130 million the PAC raised this year comes from an $82.5 million transfer from DeSantis’ former state political committee — the money left over from his run for governor. The rest can largely be attributed to a group of wealthy backers donating seven-figure sums.
Robert Bigelow is the PAC's largest single donor, injecting more than $20 million into their efforts. Bigelow, a Las Vegas real estate and aerospace mogul also gave millions to DeSantis’ gubernatorial reelection efforts.
Megadonors Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, owners of packing supply company U-Line, together, donated $2 million. The couple are some of the biggest donors in Republican politics and previously supported Trump’s campaign in 2020.
Other major donors include billionaire venture capitalist Doug Leone and Stefan Brodie, co-founder of Pennsylvania-based Purolite, who each donated $2 million. Standard Industries CEO David Millstone and Saul Fox, gave $1 million each
Other notable donors giving six-figure amounts to Never Back Down include Florida developer Jay Odom, First Coast Energy CEO Aubrey Edge and former San Francisco 49ers Owner and Tampa-based businessman Eddie DeBartolo Jr.
According to filings, the Orlando Magic, majority-owned by Dan DeVos, donated $50,000 to the PAC.
Many of the big money donations came earlier in the cycle, but when asked Cuccinelli says they are not solely relying on the donors in the first FEC report for the duration of the race and are working to build the donor base over the next several months.
"The governor's perseverance and work ethic, impress a lot of people, including donors and that is paying dividends for us as we go forward and fully expect to be able to engage, invite the governor to come as a special guest to events where we do more fundraising, and we expect to do more of that," Cuccinelli added.
This filing comes just a week after DeSantis' principal campaign cut a third of his campaign staff — or 38 people, according to campaign aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal campaign strategy.
The dramatic staffing cuts include the “less than 10” employees that the DeSantis team revealed letting go earlier in the month just as federal filings showed that his campaign was burning through cash at an unsustainable rate, even before launching a substantial paid advertising campaign.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.