Ron DeSantis campaign leaker was invited to donor meeting by staffer he met on a dating app

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign was rattled this week by an embarrassing leak from a strategy meeting with donors, with leaked audio and slides showing aides trying to put a positive spin on data that clearly showed Trump has an advantage in the 2024 primary and that an unusually large chunk of voters have negative views of DeSantis despite high name recognition.

But perhaps just as embarrassing as the leak itself might be how the leak happened, according to Peter Schorsch, publisher of Florida Politics, the campaign insider site which first broke the leak.

The first hint of how it happened came from a tweet by DeSantis spokesperson and campaign official Christina Pushaw, showing a picture of the person claimed to be the leaker and saying, "As you can see, not a member of our team. Team DeSantis does not leak. But larger events with many outside attendees sometimes run the risk of infiltration."

Schorsch then confirmed Pushaw's account — and added a new twist.

"My source who was a conduit to me receiving the audio from the DeSantis donor briefing confirms this was the source of the audio," tweeted Schorsch. "this person says he was invited to the briefing after interacting with a @RonDeSantis campaign staffer on the dating app @Hinge."

Alex Bruesewitz, a Republican consultant aligned with former President Donald Trump, ruthlessly mocked the DeSantis campaign over the revelation: "It came from a HINGE dating app match of one Team DeSantis’ staff members," wrote Bruesewitz, asking Pushaw, "who on your team is inviting Hinge matches to donor retreats?!"

This comes as new polling shows that DeSantis is a distant second behind Trump. DeSantis' current strategy is to invest heavily in Iowa, the first contest of the cycle, in the hope that a potential win there could be leveraged into greater national attention which would allow him to stay in until Florida's contest, where a huge amount of delegates are up for grabs.