A top fundraiser to Ben Carson’s presidential campaign reportedly quit Wednesday after unsuccessfully trying to reinstate an ousted adviser.
Bill Millis, once a member of a three-person fundraising board for the former neurosurgeon’s presidential bid, told the Wall Street Journal that he resigned Wednesday in an email to Carson after he tried to have Terry Giles rehired. Giles was pushed out of the campaign in November.
An heir to a sock-manufacturing company in High Point, N.C., Millis had been a loyal member to Carson’s team since his famous speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013. However, the former Carson fundraiser’s call for Giles to be rehired in a CEO-type role overseeing campaign manager Barry Bennett and chief strategist Ed Brookover fell on deaf ears.
“I disagree with the campaign, but I’m hoping and praying that the concerns I have are wrong,” Mr. Millis told the WSJ. “I’m one, and they are the masses. And they decided to move forward with the campaign as is.”
Carson addressed Millis’ decision to leave the campaign Wednesday evening during a press conference in South Carolina. The 2016 hopeful told reporters that he hadn’t seen the report or Millis’s email.
“I have not had an opportunity to read the article yet,” Carson told a reporter, adding “but people come and go.”
“He is a friend and he lives in North Carolina,” Carson continued, adding that “you’d have to talk to him” to find out what happened. Carson also told the reporter that he “didn’t see” the email in question.
Communications director Doug Watts told the Washington Examiner that the campaign will miss Millis’ presence on the team.
“Bill Millis is a wonderful man,” Watts said in an email. “I enjoyed working with him and I will miss his gentlemanly manner.”
Millis did, however, indicate that he still supports Carson in his quest for the White House and doesn’t plan to jump off completely and back another GOP 2016 candidate.
The announcement comes during a time of strife for the Carson campaign, with faltering poll numbers since the Paris terror attacks and increased scrutiny about the former neurosurgeon’s depth of knowledge on foreign policy.
In the most recent Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday, Carson fell from his perch alongside Donald Trump at the top of the GOP field, having declined from 23 percent to 16 percent support. This put him behind Trump (27 percent) and Marco Rubio (17 percent). He is tied with Ted Cruz.
It also comes after Giles’ departure from the campaign in mid-November. Giles, a longtime friend of Carson, was responsible for hiring many on the campaign’s senior staff. The campaign, however, is moving on without Giles and Millis now.
“Mr. Millis is a member of the corporate board. Today, he resigned that position,” campaign manager Barry Bennett said. “He had no role in the campaign, and his departure will not alter the campaign in any way.”
