DeSantis plans high-dollar fundraisers in Kansas City area, Wichita amid campaign reboot

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will court high-dollar donors in Kansas City and Wichita next week amid an ongoing attempt to reset his struggling presidential campaign in a Republican race dominated by former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis will appear at luncheons in Wichita on Aug. 7 and the Kansas City area on Aug. 8, according to invitations circulating among Republicans. Access to the luncheons begin at $3,300 per person, with a VIP reception priced at $6,600 per person.

The fundraising events are coming two weeks after the DeSantis campaign laid off more than a third of its staff in a cost-saving measure as the second-place candidate burns through cash. In addition to taking in donations, the appearances may help the candidate build support in Kansas and Missouri – two states that could prove important in a drawn-out battle with Trump for the nomination.

But Trump is the favorite for Republicans in both states, according to interviews with current and former GOP elected officials and party leaders.

In a New York Times-Siena College national poll conducted in late July, 54% of likely Republican voters say they support Trump, compared to 17% for DeSantis. Kansas City area Republicans interviewed by The Star on Monday offered a roughly comparable, though anecdotal, view of the race regionally.

“It’s clearly Trump, Trump ahead,” said former Kansas Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer, who Trump tapped to lead a federal panel on rural health care in 2020. “When you drive down I-70 or I-35, you’re seeing these signs ‘Trump ‘24’ up and no other candidate’s ever shown that sort of loyalty.”

Colyer places Trump’s lead in Kansas at 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 based on his conversations with voters. Colyer, who was governor in 2018 and early 2019, said he expects to announce who he’s supporting in the coming weeks.

Despite facing multiple criminal indictments and a civil jury finding he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s, Trump retains a strong base of support among Republicans. After falsely claiming he won the 2020 election, he has promised in a second term to seek the death penalty for drug traffickers, order the Department of Justice to investigate “radical left” prosecutors and has said he could settle the Russian war on Ukraine in one day if elected.

DeSantis is campaigning as a hard-right alternative to Trump who supporters say could effectively carry out the former president’s agenda without the legal and rhetorical baggage surrounding Trump. DeSantis has aggressively promoted his decision to quickly lift pandemic restrictions and hasn’t hesitated to wield government power against perceived ideological enemies, including Disney after the company opposed Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Spokespeople for the DeSantis campaign didn’t respond to questions on Monday. The campaign hasn’t announced any public events during the visit and hasn’t disclosed the locations of the fundraisers. An email accompanying the invitations says the campaign hopes “to see you at one of the events in Kansas,” suggesting the Kansas City event is on the Kansas side of the metro.

“Governor DeSantis is the first presidential candidate to visit Kansas during this presidential campaign, and we hope you will join us for one of the events supporting Team DeSantis 2024,” the email says.

This trip won’t be DeSantis’ first visit to Kansas, however. In September 2022, DeSantis held a rally in Johnson County in support of then-Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who was the Republican candidate for governor. Schmidt went on to lose to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in November. The Kansas side of the Kansas City metro is increasingly becoming a Democratic stronghold, with Trump losing Johnson County in 2020.

The main super PAC supporting DeSantis, Never Back Down, is being advised by Jeff Roe, who founded the Kansas City-based political consulting firm Axiom Strategies and managed the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The PAC had $97 million cash on hand in June, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Wichita is home to Koch Industries, the massive privately-held company led by billionaire Charles Koch, who funds an extensive network of political groups that often support Republican candidates. Koch is spending tens of millions to oppose Trump, but hasn’t endorsed a candidate.

Koch Industries and the DeSantis campaign didn’t respond to questions about whether the candidate plans to meet with Charles Koch while in Wichita.

Trump may be able to effectively clinch the nomination quickly next year if he sweeps early nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and has a very strong showing on March 5 – Super Tuesday – when more than a dozen states will hold caucuses and primaries. But if DeSantis can remain competitive until then, other states such Kansas and Missouri will grow in importance as the candidates scramble to win delegates.

Some Republicans cautioned against writing off DeSantis in the area as Republicans weigh whether Trump could again win a general election. Trump’s already significant legal troubles are expected to continue to grow, but others said in interviews the investigations are so far boosting his support.

Trump has been indicted on New York state charges of falsifying business records and on federal charges related to retaining classified documents at his Florida club and obstructing investigators. The former president has also said he anticipates another federal indictment over allegations related to his quest to remain in power after his 2020 election loss. And a Georgia district attorney will likely seek to indict Trump related to his post-election efforts in that state.

“It is helping Trump. It helps him a lot,” Mark Anthony Jones, chairman of the Jackson County Republican Committee, said of the indictments and investigations.

Kansas state Rep. William Sutton, a Gardner Republican, said that while the indictments and investigations have driven up Trump’s support, he expects the race to become more even as the rally effect subsides.

“I think DeSantis, if he’s on the ground in Kansas, has a real shot,” Sutton said. “Again, there’s a lot of Trump supporters who are married to Trump and that’s it. But I think there’s still a lot of people who are persuadable.”

Bob Beatty, a political science professor at Washburn University in Topeka who has closely studied the Iowa caucuses, said Trump’s legal problems remain a “wild card” in the race. DeSantis’ stops in Kansas City and Wichita, in addition to raising money, shows the Florida governor is networking with supporters he may need to mount a campaign in Kansas and Missouri this spring.

“A primary can be a true slog, a battle to the finish,” Beatty said, referencing the long Democratic nominating fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008. It took Obama until June to secure enough delegates to lock down the nomination.

“It’s very possible it could happen again,” Beatty said. “It’s a hell of a thing to watch, that’s for sure.”

DeSantis’ efforts to convert Trump supporters could end up benefiting Democrats nationwide, said Jeff Smith, a former Missouri Democratic state senator. As Trump and DeSantis fight to win over hard-right Republicans who vote in primaries, more moderate voters may be left in the lurch.

“If the ideological terrain of the national Republicans that they’re fighting over moves so far to the right that they’re far from the 40-yard line of American politics, that gives a national Democrat more running room, more opportunity to seize the great middle of American politics, which is why we won independent voters in 2020,” Smith said.

“And why we won independent voters in the 2022 Senate races.”

In the primary, Kansas state Rep. Samantha Poetter Parshall, a Paola Republican, said Trump has a strong hold on Kansas Republican voters that DeSantis will not be able to overcome. Some of the support, she said, is loyalty for a politician who meets them at their level.

“The only path that he would have in Kansas would be if Trump wasn’t in it,” she said.

The Star’s Katie Bernard and Kacen Bayless contributed reporting