The 2024 presidential election is heating up and with it comes the typical scramble of political consultants trying to hitch wagons to the winning campaign. The hottest gossip right now surrounds the Never Back Down PAC, which will support Florida governor Ron DeSantis in the event of a presidential run and has recently gobbled up some prominent Trump 2020 alumni.
One of the key players in any Republican election is Jeff Roe, the head of Axiom Strategies and a top consultant to Senator Ted Cruz during the 2016 election. Axiom, which is one of the three major GOP consulting firms alongside Majority Strategies and Arena, played a major role in Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin’s upset over Terry McAuliffe in 2021.
Just last week, it was revealed that Roe would be leaving Youngkin to serve as a senior advisor to the Never Back Down PAC.
Some reports suggested that Axiom would stay on with Youngkin in some capacity and that Roe’s departure from the team was amicable. However, sources familiar with Roe’s departure tell The Spectator that Youngkin intends to push Axiom out entirely. Why? Roe had allegedly stopped answering phone calls from the Virginia governor even as he collected $25,000 a month in consulting fees.
Roe’s leap-frogging between campaigns sparked a viral meme in consultant world, though none are quite sure where the meme originated. The meme refers to Roe as the “Hamburglar” and shows him pilfering millions of dollars from various Senate campaigns that lost in the 2022 midterms.
Despite the Axiom split, Youngkin may still be inadvertently funding Roe. Insiders revealed that Youngkin is still pushing business to data and analytics firm WPA Intelligence. WPAi is run by Roe ally Chris Wilson, another Cruz 2016 veteran who recently signed on to lead data efforts for Never Back Down PAC.
Youngkin is said to be on good terms with Wilson, but supposedly has not been made aware that Roe holds a minority stake in WPAi and thus is receiving a cut of the firm’s profits.
Sources told The Spectator that Roe snagged his stake in WPAi when Wilson was going through a messy divorce and desperately needed an influx of cash. They say this is a part of a larger strategy by Roe to snatch up smaller data and consulting firms and roll them into Axiom, ultimately creating a juggernaut that can beat out the other two major GOP consulting firms, Arena and Majority Strategies.
One thing to watch at Never Back Down PAC will be the relationship between Roe and Phil Cox, the former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. Cox joined DeSantis for his 2022 re-election campaign and has quickly consolidated power around the governor. Cox and Roe have never liked each other, and campaign insiders say their new DeSantis-driven alliance is quite like a shotgun marriage.
A bigger picture concern for consultants heading into 2024 is how Team DeSantis will manage to expand his state-wide operation into a national electoral machine. DeSantis is known to keep a small circle of advisors and to be a micromanager. This approach has so far prevented the PR stumbles and unwanted leaks that normally plague candidates. But it could also kill the efficiency required by a national campaign operation.
