Generra Peckhad just finished a 5K spartan race at Nationals Park in Washington in September 2021 when the phone call came from Ron and Casey DeSantis.
Seeking to rebuild a political operation left dormant by internal dissension and the pandemic, Florida’s first couple were ringing to ask Peck to steer the governor’s re-election campaign.
Peck took all of a few moments to get to yes.
She drove back to her home in Richmond, packed her suitcase, scooped up her dog and began the 11-hour drive to Tallahassee the next day.
Peck has been back home only twice since, fully vested as DeSantis’ top political lieutenant as he embarks on a White House run that will require him to vanquish not only a sitting president, but more immediately, a towering former one inside his own party.
But as she directs a daunting primary campaign in which DeSantis is fighting from a deficit of more than 20 points with less than six months before votes are cast in Iowa, the cucumber-cool, hyper-insular mantra of Peck and her team is already being tested by the unforgiving onslaught of national media scrutiny.
Nearing two months into his launch, DeSantis has endured a glitchy Twitter-based roll-out, dipping poll numbers, questions about his personal relatability on the stump and critiques about the campaign’s choice to wage an aggressive cultural contrast with Donald Trump — online and from the hard right.
Last week, as news broke that DeSantis was already shedding staff to control costs, it became the first time Peck’s own leadership decisions had landed under the microscope.
With even some DeSantis allies openly expressing frustration about the direction of the campaign, questions are intensifying about Peck’s ability to survive DeSantis’ summer slump.
“They’ve never been comfortable relying on or delegating to staff,” said a former DeSantis campaign staffer, referring to the governor and his wife. “It’s a culture where everyone’s looking over their shoulder.”
In a statement released through a spokesperson, Peck pointed to DeSantis’ fundraising and a plan to ramp up his in-person campaign activity as bright spots.
“The generous support we received this quarter will be critical as we continue to capitalize on the momentum shift that occurred in Iowa this week and deploy the Full Grassley,” Peck said, referring to the decision to send DeSantis to each of Iowa’s 99 counties. “Americans across the country are about to see a whole lot more of Ron DeSantis. Get ready.”
But DeSantis is entering the crucial third quarter with just $12 million in his warchest, burning through cash at a rate that is reminiscent of Scott Walker’s 2016 campaign, which shuttered after just two months.
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If Trump’s political journey has created a band of dishy operatives both famous and infamous, Peck, 36, has attempted to embrace the opposite posture: Low-key, drama-free and exceedingly media wary.
Despite being tapped as DeSantis’ presidential campaign manager, Peck’s media presence has — until recently — been nearly invisible.
It was an intentional, if not untenable, decision to try and keep the focus on DeSantis and away from personnel and personalities. The vacuum prompted some in the press to crown the consultant running the governor’s Never Back Down super PAC, Jeff Roe, as DeSantis’ shadow strategist, pulling the strings behind the curtain.
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