After supporting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis during his campaign and leaving the Never Back Down super PAC, Steve Cortes, a former Trump aide, had a change of heart and wrote an opinion piece headlined “Only Trump Can Save America.”

In the RealClear Politics article, Mr. Cortes stated that, contrary to his initial belief, that Republican supporters were prepared to forget about former President Donald Trump in this election cycle, he now admits, he “was wrong.”

Mr. Cortes advised President Trump during his campaigns in 2016 and 2020.

He declared in a Newsweek editorial in May 2023 that he supported Mr. DeSantis and that the “America First movement” was greater than President Trump.

With minimal allusions to President Trump, he said that Mr. DeSantis was “the best possible option to win the presidency in 2024,” but he later attacked the outgoing leader on social media.

Speaking on behalf of Never Back Down, Mr. Cortes was questioned regarding the discrepancy between President Trump’s continuous lead and Mr. DeSantis’s stagnant polling ratings. At a Twitter gathering, he made a remark about the governor being “way behind” in the polls, which sparked a wave of media attention over Mr. DeSantis’s struggling campaign.