Peter Hamby: “Multiple GOP sources tell me that a pair of respected Republican consultants—Phil Cox, a veteran adviser to Republican governors with close connections with major donors, and Liesl Hickey, the former executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee—have been recruiting staffers for a super PAC that would support a DeSantis bid.”
“The governor has not made a decision on a campaign, but both Cox and Hickey are experienced, high-level strategists who helped steer DeSantis’s 2020 re-election bid and his attention-grabbing fights on education and Covid. They aren’t the kind of people who waste their days fighting with randos on Twitter—both were working in the trenches of Republican politics long before Trump came along—and their involvement in the possible super PAC is one of the strongest signals yet that DeSantis is moving toward a national campaign. I’m also told that Generra Peck, a Darden MBA with Virginia roots who now works for DeSantis in Tallahassee, has been making similar recruiting calls to Republican operatives about possibly working on an official campaign if DeSantis decides to take the plunge.”
