Robert Bigelow, owner of Budget Suites of America and Bigelow Aerospace, listens to Nevada Governor-elect Joe Lombardo during an event with supporters at Rancho High School Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. Lombardo beat incumbent Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak.
Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023 | 2 a.m.
The Las Vegas billionaire who is Ron DeSantis’ biggest financial donor appears to be reconsidering his backing of the Florida governor’s presidential bid.
Robert Bigelow — who in March donated more than $20 million to DeSantis’ political action committee Never Back Down — at one time likened DeSantis to a modern-day Ronald Reagan. But in an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, he criticized the conservative governor for running a weak campaign and for signing a six-week abortion ban in Florida. Bigelow also suggested in the interview he’s switching his support to former President Donald Trump.
“I’ve got to look at who would probably be the strongest commander, with the most experience. … And that’s only one guy,” Bigelow told the Financial Times. “Who would you want as a commander? I’d want somebody that would be a hell of an a-- kicker if he needed to be. On the face of it, you lean toward Trump.”
Neither Bigelow nor the DeSantis campaign responded to requests for comment.
The largest obstacles in Trump’s way for the 2024 GOP nomination are the former president’s mounting legal woes, Bigelow told the Financial Times. Trump was in court in New York this week for a civil trial over fraud allegations related to his real estate empire, and he is also facing four criminal indictments — two of them on federal charges. Bigelow said Trump seemed to have the momentum to carry him atop the Republican ticket for the third time in a row, and called Trump a “bull” while likening DeSantis to “dinner.”
Bigelow, 79, told the Financial Times his support of DeSantis began to waver in April, after DeSantis signed the Florida legislation banning abortion in most cases after six weeks of pregnancy.
“Six weeks, she just found out she’s pregnant, the odds are,” Bigelow said. “It’s a sham. It’s make-believe. It’s condescending.”
Bigelow also said during the interview he expected to hear from DeSantis in August, after he knocked DeSantis’ signing of the bill and threatened to stop donations to his campaign. Bigelow eventually did receive a call, but it came from DeSantis’ wife, Casey.
“Not having him bothering to call me for an explanation taught me that he’s more of a user of people, actually, and that I didn’t matter enough for him to pick up the phone,” Bigelow told the Financial Times.
Polling this week from the Trafalgar Group showed DeSantis slipping into third place in the crowded GOP field behind Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. The poll, which surveyed 1,089 likely GOP primary voters, showed Trump getting 50% support, while Haley was polling at 15% and DeSantis 13.2%.
What Bigelow likes about Trump, he said, was the former president’s willingness to “go in the gutter” if it means electoral victory.
“You better be able to kill — and that’s not who Ron is,” Bigelow said.
Bigelow’s comments also came a day before the third GOP presidential debate, which took place Wednesday night in Miami. Despite being the leading candidate in most polls, Trump has yet to appear at the Republican debates.
Bigelow is the owner of Budget Suites of America as well as the founder of Bigelow Aerospace. In 2016, Bigelow’s space company sent an expandable module that can carry more than 1,000 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station.
Bigelow was also friends with the late Harry Reid, the Nevadan who served as Senate majority leader during the Obama administration. Despite political differences between the two, Reid — a Democrat — helped earmark $22 million for a Department of Defense program to study unidentified flying objects that contracted with Bigelow Aerospace.
Bigelow’s fascination with the paranormal reaches beyond space and potential alien life. Last year, he announced he had provided grant funding up to $1 million to research “contact and communication with post-mortem or discarnate consciousness.” The grant winners are to be announced this month.
In 2016, Bigelow sold a 480-acre plot of land in northeast Utah dubbed “Skinwalker Ranch” he had owned since 1996. Skinwalker Ranch, a site where numerous alleged paranormal events have occurred, has been the subject of various media projects, notably a 2005 book by Las Vegas journalist George Knapp, as well as a television series that began airing on the History Channel in 2020.
More recently, however, Bigelow has been more vocal about his politics.
Bigelow in September 2022 told The Associated Press that “liberalism, that’s a cancer. And we have U.S. senators and representatives that need to go. And the second would be a philosophy of freedom — a philosophy of free enterprise and freedom for everybody.”
In the 2022 election cycle, Bigelow contributed nearly $50 million to campaigns and political action committees mostly in support of Nevada Republicans, including millions to PACs supporting Joe Lombardo’s campaign to become governor.
