Never Back Down PAC, the political action committee supporting Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has caused a stir in early voting state Iowa — but maybe not in the way they had hoped.
The PAC is being accused of disrespecting the Black Hawk County Republicans by sending too many activists to the group’s participation in a local parade last weekend.
The Black Hawk County Republican chair, Craig Lohmann, sent an email invitation to the campaigns of the GOP primary candidates to walk with them in the annual My Waterloo Days parade. In the email, Lohmann says that campaigns may send “a few” representatives “with shirts with names and some handouts.” He cautioned the campaigns and associated PACs to avoid giving the impression that the Black Hawk County GOP was endorsing any candidate.
“The offer is open to all campaigns. You realize we are not endorsing any candidate. Do not try and take advantage of the situation and make it look like we are. Jeff Jacobi is our in charge guy. My thoughts are a few people with shirts with names and some handouts — OK. Probably not putting your signs on our float,” Lohmann wrote.
Jeff Jacobi, the group’s outreach chair, followed up to confirm Lohmann’s offer: “As mentioned by Craig, you are welcome to bring a few folks with you with shirts to walk with our group, pass out candy and literature.”
According to April Melton, a Black Hawk County GOP central committee member, the group was taken aback when the Never Back Down PAC showed up with twenty-two activists carrying triple-stacked signs and a large “DeSantis 2024” flag.
“As Iowans, we take our responsibility to vet candidates very seriously. And we invite everybody to come as a general rule,” Melton explained. “But there’s a trick called astroturfing, and that is where a candidate or a candidate’s PAC will kind of descend on the county and basically fall in on the back side. And that’s what happened.”
“We invited every candidate to send two or three people,” Melton continued. “[Never Back Down] sent about twenty-five people and they brought their own flags. At the time, we didn’t really want to say no because we had invited them. But at the same time, it was a little overwhelming because they marched so close to us that it just felt icky.”
Another source familiar with the incident told The Spectator that county party members expressed that they viewed the Never Back Down group as “unruly” and “rowdy.”
“They brought about thirty unruly kids who were clearly from out of state and who were disrespectful and rowdy,” the source said.
The Black Hawk County GOP only had about sixteen volunteers marching in the parade to Never Back Down PAC’s twenty-two staffers.
Melton said she believed only one of the Never Back Down PAC activists was from their county and added that their outsized presence at the parade was disruptive to their efforts to support other candidates and the Republican Party more generally.
“While we were marching and passing out candy, they kind of jumped up in front of our our group passing out stickers and stuff like that,” she said. “We were trying to support our governor, Kim Reynolds, and our local candidates as well. So to have a big group for just one candidate fall in like that, it was really kind of unnerving.”
A Never Back Down official contended to The Spectator that its staff members followed all instructions from the party officials at the event and took great care not to provide any disruption. The official also noted that no complaints were made to the team at any time.
The incident apparently bothered the Black Hawk County Republicans enough, though, that was brought it up at their monthly meeting Thursday night. Melton introduced a resolution to ban PACs from joining their future parade entries to prevent similar incidents.
Another Black Hawk County GOP member said she appreciated the motion because it would prevent the perception that they were endorsing a candidate in the primary election. The motion passed overwhelmingly via voice vote, with just one dissenter.
“Our party is to represent everybody until they become a nominee. And then we want to support those nominees. That’s really important to us,” Melton said.
Erin Perrine, communications director for Never Back Down, suggested that complaints about the PAC’s showy presence at the My Waterloo Days were borne out of Trump campaign jealousy.
“The team had a wonderful time with the Hinson and Reynolds teams, as well as party officials, supporters and others. It’s a shame the Trump campaign spends more time trying to fabricate drama and conflict instead of recruiting their own volunteers,” Perrine said in a statement.
