Long before Ron DeSantis’ presidential ambitions began to falter, it was clear to anyone paying close attention that there were fatal flaws in his much-hyped political operation.

“I had to have it explained to me the first time DeSantis came here for a parade,” an early DeSantis supporter in New Hampshire recalled to The Daily Beast. “I was gonna show up for the parade and I was informed, ‘This is a Never Back Down event, so you can’t mention anything about the campaign.’ And I was like, what the hell is this?”

This, the New Hampshire presidential campaign veteran would come to learn, was how the DeSantis campaign thought they’d cracked the code to beat former President Donald Trump.

Never Back Down was launched as a super PAC—loaded up with $80 million transferred from DeSantis’ state-level PAC in Florida—designed to carry him to the presidency through sheer force. The prospect of a talent-stocked PAC spending historic sums on organizing and campaign messaging was initially so fearsome that some Republicans dubbed Never Back Down the “Death Star.”