Ron DeSantis’ advisors say they are ‘preparing to make the patient comfortable’ as his once-promising presidential bid nears life support with campaign funds drained, his biggest super PAC demoralized and Trump surging in the polls

A spokesperson for Rod DeSantis' struggling presidential campaign has lashed out at a “media hit” amid claims they privately admitted his race is close.

Support for the Florida governor has fallen from 35 percent to 12 percent in the race for the Republican nomination, as Donald Trump has consolidated his lead with the Iowa caucus just three weeks away.

As DeSantis battles Nikki Haley for second place in the polls, a campaign manager said their job now is to “make the patient comfortable,” aides told the New York Times.

The newspaper spoke to a dozen people close to DeSantis' election efforts after an autumn of unrest that saw open divisions between his campaign team and supporters of the Never Back Down Super PAC.

“You're running against a former president, you have to be perfect and lucky,” said one.

'We have been unlucky and are far from perfect.'

The resignation of Super PAC strategist Jeff Roe last week came at the end of a months-long bloodbath that also saw the ouster of his campaign manager, two Super Pac executives and its chairman.

And some are pointing the finger at the governor's preference for working with his trusted Florida friends rather than experienced campaign professionals.

Super PACs are expected to have long-distance relationships with the candidates they support to comply with campaign finance laws, but DeSantis made sure he had three longtime friends overseeing Roe on Never Back Down's board of directors.

Roe lashed out at someone last month, the governor's college classmate Scott Wagner, reportedly telling him, “You've got a big stick, Scott,” as they rowed about how the campaign had raised $100 million.

“Why don't you come over here and get it?” Wagner reportedly fired back when NBC reported that the two men “almost collided.”

That meeting led to the resignation of super PAC CEO Chris Jankowski, who months earlier had helped oust campaign manager Generra Peck.

She was replaced by James Uthmeier, who had worked as DeSantis' chief of staff in the governor's office but had no campaign experience.

Wagner has since been promoted to chairman of the super PAC and has been forceful in his defense of the governor.

“Never Back Down has built a tremendous ground game with a robust infrastructure that will allow us to convey the governor's record and vision to voters across the country,” he told the Times.

But the super PAC dropped $2.5 million in ad bookings in Iowa and New Hampshire this weekend, amid claims it was sidelined after the governor's faltering performance in the polls.

A new super PAC called Fight Right is now working on behalf of the governor, but is struggling to attract the size of donations that flooded in as DeSantis soared in the polls.

Meanwhile, professionals he rejected have gone to work for Trump's campaign, bringing with them inside knowledge of the governor's weaknesses.

And some who remain told the newspaper about the missteps that have dogged the DeSantis campaign since it officially launched in late May with a livestream on X, formerly Twitter.

Technical glitches prevented many from tuning in, and while Peck bragged about “breaking the internet,” Trump hit back with a one-word response: “DeSaster.”

The governor's early high profile made him a prime target for other candidates fearful of antagonizing Trump's support base, and DeSantis began attracting more negative advertising than all the others combined.

It also led to a less-than-easy ride from Trump's conservative media supporters.

“I always thought during the Republican primaries you could just do Fox News and talk on the radio and stuff,” he told conservative news host Steve Deace in October.

“And number one, I don't think that's enough, but number two is just the fact that our conservative media sphere, you know, doesn't necessarily promote conservatism. They also have agendas.

Never Back Down claimed to have knocked on two million doors in September, but almost half were outside the first-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The governor's friend's outsized influence was credited with the super PAC's biggest week of ad spending in Iowa coming in June, a full seven months before the caucus.

And the super PAC, which was tasked with attracting a flood of contributions from small donors, has still received less than $1 million.

DeSantis is the only candidate who has spoken at rallies in all 99 Iowa counties, but he struggled in the early televised debates.

And his difficult public persona has been exposed in the media, according to strategist Stuart Stevens, who worked on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign and said DeSantis came across as “Ted Cruz without a personality.”

“There was a superficial impression that DeSantis was in the posture of governors of major states who had won Republican nominations and been successful — Reagan, Bush, Romney,” he told the newspaper.

“But DeSantis is a completely different kind of creature. These were positive, comprehensive, optimistic numbers. Not DeSantis.”

Ryan Tyson, the governor's longtime pollster, reportedly said the goal now is to “make the patient comfortable,” but has since publicly denied this.

And the campaign's current communications director, Andrew Romeo, insisted his candidate was simply the target of unfair media reporting.

“Another day, same media hit, based on anonymous sources with agendas,” he told the Times.

“While the media tried to declare this campaign dead in August, Ron DeSantis fought back and enters the home stretch in Iowa as the hardest-working candidate with the most robust ground game.

“DeSantis has been underrated in every race he has ever run and has always proven the doubters wrong. We are confident he will defy the odds again on January 15.”