Pro-DeSantis super PAC debuts ad drawing sharp contrast with Trump

EXCLUSIVE — Never Back Down, a super PAC backing Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R-FL) presidential campaign, is launching a new television ad touting the governor’s biographical background and political career as his path to defeating President Joe Biden in next year’s elections.

The 30-second “One Man” ad will air in Iowa and New Hampshire, two crucial early nominating states, along with national Fox News and Newsmax starting Saturday. It contrasts DeSantis’s record of working through college and serving in the Navy with that of his chief GOP primary rival, former President Donald Trump.

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“In 2024, we have a choice. One man worked his way through Yale and Harvard Law. One did not,” the narrator of the ad says. “One volunteered to serve his nation in wartime. One did not. One man stood up to Fauci and fought for freedom. One did not. One man won historic reelection, and one did not.”

“One man is the right man to defeat Joe Biden: Ron DeSantis, president,” the narrator concludes.

The Florida governor has repeatedly slammed Trump’s relationship with former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, whose lockdown recommendations DeSantis bucked during the COVID-19 pandemic. When Trump claimed earlier this month he couldn’t “fire” Fauci because of the backlash he would have faced, DeSantis quipped back, “You got to stand up and do what’s right.”

“There was no obligation to run him out at press conference after press conference, have him doing media interviews,” DeSantis also added. Widespread Republican dissatisfaction with Fauci remains one of Trump’s weaker moments. He has in the past attempted to tie Fauci to the Biden administration in deflection of his own relationship with the former medical adviser.

DeSantis handily won his reelection campaign in 2022, a bright spot in a mixed midterm election season for Republicans who narrowly recaptured the House but failed to take back the Senate. In comparison, Trump’s loss to Biden in 2020 remains a persistent sore for the former president, which Never Back Down is highlighting in its ad. Plus, the former president’s meddling during the 2022 midterm elections may have helped block Republicans from a stronger election cycle.

Never Back Down has heavily invested in on-the-ground-efforts to boost DeSantis among Hawkeye State voters who will decide which candidate wins its caucuses in January. DeSantis, meanwhile, has repeatedly visited Iowa, claiming he will visit all 99 counties to peel off enough voters and block Trump from winning the Iowa caucuses.

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DeSantis’s super PAC boasts that at least 48 former supporters of Trump’s two previous presidential runs have flipped to backing the governor in Iowa. In a RealClearPolitics poll average, DeSantis garners 12.7% of support, the only candidate besides Trump to poll in the double digits. However, in Iowa, DeSantis polls higher; a Fox Business poll this month showed DeSantis capturing 15% of support from likely Iowa GOP caucusgoers.

The ad is part of an eight-figure ad buy Never Back Down previously announced in Iowa and New Hampshire.