‘Stupid pay-to-play’: DeSantis' political armor takes another dent

"Ron seems to be on the same path" as Ted Cruz.

An unnecessary L that served little purpose.

That’s how political operatives are describing Ron DeSantis’ late breaking endorsement of Kelly Craft, who was throttled in Kentucky’s Republican gubernatorial primary on Tuesday night.

DeSantis’ 11th hour decision to dive into a campaign that was largely decided automatically teed up the proxy war storyline against Donald Trump, who he has been not-so-subtly jabbing as responsible for the GOP’s “culture of losing.”

But it was DeSantis who attached himself to a bigly (third place) loser in a campaign he had little upside dipping his nose into.

Except for the fact that he and Craft share the same allied political consultants: Axiom Strategies and Jeff Roe.

“It was a totally stupid pay to play move by her consultants. Axiom ran Kelly’s campaign and are running Desantis’ super PAC. Ted Cruz has sold himself out to whatever Axiom tells him to do and Ron seems to be on the same path,” said Jeremy Hughes, a Nevada-based GOP consultant. “And Kelly said she was voting for Trump, so that makes it even more embarrassing.”

Read my full piece for McClatchy newspapers with Austin Horn HERE.