High-dollar Wichita donors attend fundraiser, back DeSantis in his attempt to top Trump

Florida Gov. and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis is gaining support among Wichita’s base of conservative political donors, sources told The Eagle.

DeSantis held high-dollar fundraising luncheons in Wichita and Kansas City on Monday and Tuesday. The Kansas campaign stop comes as DeSantis tries to close the widening gap between him and former President Donald Trump, who is the leading candidate for the GOP nomination.

Big name Wichita attendees at the fundraiser included Charlie Chandler, CEO and chairman of Intrust Bank; Dave Murfin, CEO of Murfin Inc.; Steve Clark and his son Stephen, leaders of Clark Investment Group; Todd Lair, president of Leading Technology Composites; and Adam Beren, president of Berexco, according to an invitation to the fundraiser obtained by The Wichita Eagle.

It’s not clear how much money DeSantis raised at the Wichita luncheon.

Stephen Clark II, a Wichita real estate developer and longtime boyfriend of Wichita mayoral candidate Lily Wu, confirmed his attendance. He said Wu did not attend the fundraiser; he declined to comment on the DeSantis luncheon. The other listed attendees did not immediately return phone calls on Tuesday.

Herb Krumsick, a Wichita real estate broker and executive vice president of J.P. Weigand & Sons, told The Eagle he and his wife, Kathy, attended the fundraiser and were impressed by DeSantis.

“Because he’s in Florida, we didn’t have a real good feel for him,” Krumsick said. “But he was everything I would have hoped for.”

“He’s a gentleman,” Krumsick said. “I know he impressed us. . . . What you see is what you get. He’s a really stand up guy, and I can see why they love him in Florida.”

Krumsick said others who attended appeared to be happy with his answers to questions.

“He has conservative views, and he was obviously not pleased with the woke attitudes of Washington,” Krumsick said. “And it just seemed to me like he had a tremendous amount of common sense. That was the main thing. He was very consistent in his views.”

Can he beat Trump in a Republican primary?

“It’s really hard to say,” Krumsick said. “I don’t think it’s a question that he’s second in line. And whether he can beat Trump or not, it’s really hard. You know, the polls aren’t saying that. But who’s to say what’s going to happen?”

DeSantis tours NIAR

DeSantis’s fundraising luncheon came after a tour of Wichita State’s National Institute for Aviation Research facility in Park City on Monday morning. Wichita State leases the facility from longtime Wichita developer and oilman Johnny Stevens, a Clark and Murfin business partner who also attended the luncheon.

“Gov. DeSantis was in town today for other business and asked to tour NIAR. He heard about us and wanted to see what we are doing to help the U.S. military sustain its legacy fleet of air and ground vehicles,” Tracee Friess, WSU’s associate vice president of strategic communications and marketing, told The Eagle in an email.

NIAR has worked closely with the U.S. Department of Defense in recent years. In March, the Army awarded the institute a $100 million contract for advancing and modernizing its tank fleet.

After the tour, DeSantis departed to court donors. Tickets for the luncheon started at $3,300 per person, with a VIP reception priced at $13,200 for a couple or $6,600 a person. The maximum donation listed on a contribution form for the event was $23,200 per couple. The money goes to Team DeSantis 2024, a joint fundraising committee for Ron DeSantis for President and Great American Comeback PAC.

The private fundraising events come as DeSantis tries to rejuvenate the viability of his campaign. His share of Republican support has been shrinking since he announced his run.

The DeSantis campaign laid off more than a third of its staff two weeks ago in a cost-cutting measure as the second-place candidate attempts to reset his struggling campaign. While DeSantis has struggled to get unified support from Republican donors, Trump’s stronghold on the GOP base has grown as prosecutors have announced one state criminal charge and two federal indictments.

In a New York Times-Siena College national poll conducted in late July, 54% of likely Republican voters said they support Trump, compared with 17% for DeSantis.

Koch has not endorsed a GOP challenger

This week, in his first broadcast network interview since he launched his campaign, DeSantis told NBC News that Trump lost the election and blamed it on the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, which provided $400 million to help states run elections during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, news broke that he replaced his campaign manager with his chief of staff in the governor’s office.

Wichita billionaire Charles Koch’s SuperPAC, Americans for Prosperity Action, has raised tens of millions of dollars to oppose Trump in the Republican primary. But neither Koch nor AFP have endorsed a Republican challenger. Bloomberg News recently reported that the lack of coordination among Republican campaign contributors, who are scattering funds to a packed list of Trump challengers, is likely creating “a dream scenario” for Trump.

The DeSantis campaign and Koch Industries did not respond to questions last week about whether the candidate would meet with Charles Koch while in Wichita.

Koch-backed political organizations — Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity — have endorsed DeSantis for his past Florida gubernatorial races.

DeSantis previously visited Kansas last September to stump for then-Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the Republican nominee for governor, who Gov. Laura Kelly defeated in November.