A top Republican campaign consultant who is heading up a pro-Ron DeSantis PAC is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in fees from aspiring GOP candidates despite a less than impressive recent history of success when it comes to getting them elected.
According to a Washington Post report, Jeff Roe, founder of Axiom Strategies, has been touting his success at signing up candidates, who are offered a variety of services his organization provides, in a prospectus to potential investors.
This is despite the fact that a startling number of his clients running for high-profile seats in Congress have not only gone down to defeat in the general election, but, in some cases, didn't survive the GOP primaries.
According to the Post's Josh Dawsey and Isaac Stanley-Becker, "In the 2022 cycle, Roe told investors that his firm, which also has corporate clients, had taken in $196 million in net revenue, while earning more than $22 million as profit after depreciation and taxes. By 2024, he said those numbers would climb to $250 million and about $36 million in profit."
As the report notes, the economic growth of Axiom "which both allies and detractors consider staggering within the Washington consulting class" has made it the major player in political circles.
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However, as they report, when it comes to actually chalking up wins at the polls. Axiom's clients are not always getting the biggest bang for their buck.
"Roe’s success has come even as he has recently posted a mixed win-loss record for federal candidates: In 2022, about 30 percent of the 54 congressional candidates who reported paying Axiom in filings with the Federal Election Commission won their races, according to a Washington Post analysis," the report states. "Several of those candidates were dropped by Axiom as clients. Those who lost included high-profile Senate candidates such as Adam Laxalt in Nevada, Jim Lamon in Arizona, Josh Mandel in Ohio and David McCormick in Pennsylvania. Axiom worked on the winning Senate race of Eric Schmitt in Missouri."
More recently, a former Donald Trump appointee, Kelly Craft who served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, lost big this past Tuesday in her bid to be the GOP's candidate for governor of Kentucky.
According to the report, "Kelly Craft, a Republican who ran for governor in Kentucky, used at least six different Roe firms for her race, paying them more than $7 million total — or about 70 percent of her campaign expenditures, campaign filings show. Most of that money was spent on buying advertisements. DeSantis and Cruz, a close friend of Roe, both endorsed Craft. She lost in Tuesday’s primary, securing 17 percent of the vote and coming in third."
The report notes that the campaign consultant defended his company's success rate, explaining, "Roe says his company’s record is much rosier when state and local races, as well as outside spending vehicles, are included in the tally, citing 748 wins and 322 losses in the 2022 election cycle. Presented with The Post’s analysis, Axiom said its broader umbrella of companies had 118 congressional clients in the 2022 cycle — meaning at least one of those companies performed a service for the client — and that 76 of those clients won."
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