Meet the mild-mannered Florida woman quietly steering the Trump campaign

ATLANTA - President Joe Biden’s debate performance had gone terribly wrong, and his opponents were ready to pounce. Roughly a dozen of Donald Trump’s senior campaign officials and top Republican surrogates swarmed the spin room floor to gloat to reporters about the 81-year-old Democratic incumbent's stumbles.

Nowhere to be seen: Susie Wiles.

Among the most powerful figures in national politics, Wiles has helped lead Trump’s political operation for three years and now is co-piloting a presidential campaign that's in as strong a position as it ever could have expected to deliver the controversial former president back to the White House.

Yet the 66-year-old Wiles remains a somewhat mysterious figure, rarely front-and-center on the campaign trail or heard from in public other than through campaign memos co-signed by Trump’s other top campaign aide.

"She hates the limelight," said John Delaney, who employed Wiles when he was the Republican mayor of Jacksonville and is a longtime friend.

Wiles travelled to Atlanta for the debate, flying to the event with Trump. She stayed with the former president as other campaign aides, surrogates and several potential vice presidential contenders raced toward the bright lights of the media.

Avoiding attention is a Wiles specialty. The mild-mannered daughter of a professional football legend is careful not to draw eyes to herself, which may be one of the biggest reasons she has stayed in this particular job longer than any other previous top Trump campaign leader, many of whom had big personalities that contributed to their downfalls.

Wiles prefers to work behind-the-scenes, like when she lined up a series of congressional endorsements for Trump in Florida early in 2023 before Gov. Ron DeSantis had even entered the GOP primary, laying the groundwork to humiliate DeSantis by getting his home state lawmakers to reject him.

Her methodical approach to the endorsement power play highlights a trait that makes her extremely effective as a leading force in Trump’s 2024 campaign, allies say. Highly organized, Wiles has brought an unprecedented level of order and professionalism to a Trump political operation that often has been in disarray through two previous White House campaigns and a chaotic presidential term, according to multiple sources close to the campaign. And while those who know Wiles describe her as friendly and low-key, her effort to kill DeSantis' campaign in the crib shows she can play hardball too.

"She'll be smiling and walk you right off the plank," said a Republican who has worked with Wiles for years.

USA TODAY spoke with more than 20 people who know Wiles, some going back decades, who describe a savvy political operator who achieved unprecedented success in Florida and has made herself essential to Trump, emerging from his 2020 defeat and her own fallout with DeSantis to become a major power player.

Wiles is navigating through one of the wildest campaigns in modern history, one shaped by a criminal trial and three other indictments, with a style that longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone calls “unflappable.”

She is immersed in every aspect of Trump’s 2024 operation, from developing the themes of next week's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to leading the search for Trump’s running mate, with one ally saying that she has “the biggest vote” in who is selected other than Trump.

Trump's trial in New York City on state charges stemming from paying hush money to an adult film actress to conceal an affair was a big test of Wiles' skills. She helped orchestrate an unprecedented "campaign from the courtroom" that included daily diatribes from Trump, events around Manhattan, court visits from top allies, including the House speaker and vice presidential contenders and a huge fundraising blitz that helped Trump close the money gap with President Joe Biden despite his historic felony conviction earlier this spring.

Unlike past Trump campaign leaders, Wiles has managed to generate goodwill from all corners of his political orbit. Trump allies credit her with helping make good things happen, like the endorsements, and note that bad things can happen when she’s not around.

Wiles killed multiple times the plans for the notorious dinner that Trump ultimately had in late 2022 at his Mar-a-Lago estate with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, that caused an uproar when Ye brought along white supremacist Nick Fuentes. It finally occurred just days before Thanksgiving when she was out of town, according to a source with knowledge of the incident.

In an interview with USA TODAY, Wiles said she doesn't deserve the credit for Trump’s surging campaign. “We do everything as a team and I would argue that’s why we’ve been successful,” she said.

Wiles said that having other staffers serve as the public-facing part of the campaign frees her up to “to do a better job” orchestrating the mechanics.

“I do prefer to be in the background,” she said.

While critics may view Wiles as abetting a candidate many Democrats view as a wannabe dictator, her closeness with Trump and his confidence in her makes the Florida grandmother essential to the GOP's bid to reclaim the White House. She's someone Trump trusts with his most important tasks, such as devising the plan to dispatch DeSantis.

“I think she’s got a very good balance,” said former Trump White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. “She’s not looking to be in the spotlight. She’s got the experience. She’s got the trust. She is flying right exactly on the radar where you want to be.”

“He tried to ruin her life”

In many ways, it’s an odd couple pairing between Trump and Wiles, who was described in a recent Wall Street Journal column as “the most important woman in American politics.”

Wiles hates public attention. Trump craves it. Wiles is disciplined. Trump is chaotic. Wiles is “no drama.” Trump is all drama.

While there are many stylistic differences between Trump and Wiles, they share at least one thing in common: Both are attempting a comeback after their political careers seemed to be over.

If Trump completes his resurrection after losing in 2020 and facing widespread recrimination following the Jan. 6, 2021, deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol, Wiles will be a big reason why. 

Wiles, meanwhile, has resurrected herself after steering DeSantis to his first gubernatorial victory in 2018 and then being booted from his orbit. She joined DeSantis' campaign that year in the final stretch, when he was floundering in the general election after tacking hard right to win a primary over an establishment Republican.

With Wiles onboard for the campaign's final month, DeSantis narrowly eked out the closest victory of any governor in Florida history. She stayed on to help with the transition effort, but soon got crosswise with DeSantis and his inner circle.

DeSantis blamed Wiles after a fundraising memo leaked detailing plans to raise big money by charging lobbyists for golf and other activities with the governor. He pressured Trump to fire her from managing his 2020 campaign in Florida, which he did.

Wiles also left her lobbying firm, Ballard Partners, where she was a partner.

Those who spoke to Wiles at the time said she was despondent.

“He didn’t just have Trump fire her, he tried to ruin her life,” a person who has known Wiles for years said of DeSantis.

“Not only do you get fired, but you basically get publicly… body slammed where they’re going out and telling everybody you can’t hire her, you can’t use her,” said another individual who knows Wiles well. “It was not pretty. It was vicious. They treated her like dirt and I’m not selling that enough.”

Wiles is adamant she didn't leak the memo and said DeSantis never met with her to explain what happened.

“He most definitely tried to make me some sort of a pariah and I was never able to get an appointment with him or anything after it happened to address it head on,” said Wiles, adding that: “Gosh it’s five years ago and a lot of water’s under that bridge… it is so in my rearview mirror.”

Wiles' allies say they believe that DeSantis resented the credit she got for his victory and his inner circle grew jealous of her, concerned she was stocking the Florida governor's administration with allies and accumulating too much influence. DeSantis' office didn't respond to a request for comment.

It wasn’t long before Wiles would have her revenge.

“Left on the environment, left on gay rights”

The daughter of longtime football broadcaster and former placekicker Pat Summerall, Wiles grew up around fame.

That may have been part of her appeal to Trump, who has long been drawn to celebrity. It also may be one reason she has successfully navigated Trump's demanding nature.

"Think about this: Her dad sat between John Madden and Howard Cosell, two of the biggest personalities, pains in the a—, right?" said a Trump campaign official. "Really hard thing, and he was the calming center. And it’s genetic. She has that."

Wiles said her father didn’t have much influence on her political career, beyond ensuring she had the same opportunities as her brothers and encouraging her to follow whatever path she wanted.

“I think the Summerall family is pretty competitive and has been very successful and I think my dad’s influence was really more that than politics,” she said. “Politics wasn’t his thing. Sports was his thing.

Wiles' family connections did help launch her into politics, though. She started out working for U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp, R-N.Y., a football teammate of her famous father. She later worked on former President Ronald Reagan’s campaigns and in his administration.

Stone, who got to know Wiles while working on the Reagan and Kemp campaigns, calls her “extraordinarily well organized.”

"Trump is a free spirit, and Susie both recognizes that but at the same time I think she brings order and structure and organization to the Trump campaign and he trusts her, which is the absolute key element," Stone said.

Wiles reputation as a top GOP operative was forged in Florida. She and her ex-husband — they have two daughters and a grandson — moved in the early 1980s to Jacksonville, where she has family. She worked in intervals as a consultant and in government, taking 11 years off to raise her daughters. 

In 1995, Wiles helped Delaney become Jacksonville’s first Republican mayor since shortly after the Civil War. She later served as Delaney’s chief of staff. 

Delaney is a moderate Republican. Among his signature programs was a sales tax increase to pay for infrastructure, and an environmental land conservation program. Wiles was instrumental in both.

“She’s a Republican, but she’s not uber, uber conservative at all,” Delaney said. “Really you’d be struck more by moderate than anything else… she’d be left on the environment, left on gay rights.”

Rick Mullaney, who worked with Wiles in Delaney’s administration, also described her as “pretty non-ideological.”

Wiles takes pride in the Jacksonville land conservation program she helped build, noting she still sits on the group’s board, and also said she likes bird watching, gardening and just being outside.

“If that makes me an environmentalist that would be so,” she said.

In 2012 Wiles briefly managed the presidential campaign of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a moderate Republican who ended his White House run that year during the early days of a primary season ultimately won by Mitt Romney.

Four years later, Wiles was eyeing a job managing Trump's Florida operation for 2016 when she sat down to lunch with Delaney, a lifelong Republican. He advised against it.

“I just don’t think that’s what you want on your obituary,” Delaney, who would not vote for Trump in either 2016 or 2020, said he told Wiles. “He just seemed so unlike her. She’s classy and dignified. She doesn’t curse… she’s an every Sunday church going kind of person.”

Despite Wiles’ button-down image and more moderate personal politics, she has a history of championing insurgent, outsider GOP candidates.

Rick Scott, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott has now spent nearly 14 years in public office, but when he connected with Wiles back in 2010, he was an unknown former hospital company executive who had the entire Florida GOP establishment lined up against him.

Wiles helped Scott tap into the tea party wave as he defeated a well-connected GOP opponent and went on to narrowly win the general election.

“Most Republicans were told if they worked on my campaign in the primary they would never work in Republican politics so I’ll forever be grateful somebody with Susie’s reputation came to work for me,” said Scott, adding Wiles is "really smart, she’s a hard worker, she’s a team player, I think she gives really good advice."

That 2010 victory was the beginning of a Wiles winning streak that may be unrivaled in the history of Florida politics.

Wiles won four statewide races in 10 years, delivering the state for Scott, DeSantis in 2018 and Trump both in 2016 and 2020. In the process, she helped shift what was long seen as the nation's largest swing state into more firmly Republican territory.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz worked with Wiles on multiple campaigns and describes her as “one of the most talented political operatives in the country."

"Highly organized... driven, trusted by the president," Gaetz added.

In the first three Florida races, Wiles achieved narrow victories of a percentage point or less in incredibly competitive contests.

“She’s probably been the most successful political operative in Florida campaign history,” said Brian Ballard, a Trump fundraiser who runs the lobbying firm where Wiles once worked.

Despite her success, the future of Wiles' political career was in doubt in 2019 after her break with DeSantis. Trump gave her a second chance.

Back with Trump

As the 2020 election grew closer, Trump’s campaign grew nervous about Florida and decided to bring Wiles back despite DeSantis’ opposition.

Trump ended up carrying Florida by more than three percentage points, tripling his margin of victory from 2016. Wiles’ reputation as a winner grew.

Overall, though, the 2020 election was a disaster for Trump, one compounded by his refusal to accept the results, resulting in a mob of his supporters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Yet while many Republicans distanced themselves from Trump after Jan. 6, Wiles drew closer. She helped run his political operations post presidency.

Wiles said she "didn’t like the Capitol being destroyed but that was a very small minority of the people that were there” and she doesn't believe Trump should be blamed for what happened.

Trump asked Wiles to dinner in early 2021 and eventually tasked her with getting his Save America PAC’s affairs in order. That evolved into other tasks, such as coordinating endorsements and rallies for various candidates.

“I was a believer and I had worked really hard in two tough races and to the extent that I could help I wanted to," Wiles said.

 The job ensnared her in one of Trump’s legal cases.

The office of Special Counsel Jack Smith interviewed Wiles about Trump's handling of classified documents in the first of two federal criminal cases against the former president. 

Wiles is believed to be the unnamed individual in Smith’s original indictment whom Trump allegedly showed a classified map to, according to ABC News. The federal judge in the case recently agreed to strike the paragraph detailing the map incident from the indictment, though. Wiles declined to comment on the case.

Her position has evolved into leading Trump’s 2024 campaign with another senior adviser, Chris LaCivita.

A Republican who is close to Trump world and knows Wiles believes she saw a chance to resurrect her career by helping Trump at his lowest point.

“I don’t want to pretend that everything Susie does is altruistic, I think she saw an opportunity,” the individual said. “I think she has a good sense of where the political winds are going and I think she knew that this wasn’t going to be the end of Trump but also that a lot of people are going to run away and be scared and that Trump values loyalty, and so I think she saw an opportunity to sort of get her foot in the door at a time where she could prove herself to him and sort of solidify her position in Trump world, and she did that.”

Wiles’ first job as a top Trump 2024 campaign aide was winning the primary. While Trump pummeled DeSantis as “DeSanctimonious,” Wiles worked behind the scenes to outmaneuver his campaign.

She helped orchestrate a show of political force by getting most of Florida’s GOP congressional delegation to back Trump at a key early moment, before DeSantis had officially announced.

“It was devastating,” Stone said, calling the move “a major milestone on the way to the nomination.”

“She had worked for DeSantis,” added former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “She knew his weaknesses intimately and she laid out for the president a strategy that would take DeSantis out of the race and they executed it.”

Wiles allowed herself a rare moment of public celebration and knife twisting after it was clear DeSantis would drop out, writing on X “bye, bye.”

It is her only post on the social media site this year. 

"It didn't make me sad," Wiles said of DeSantis dropping out.

Not everyone was impressed with the primary win.

“Had they lost the primary it would have been pathetic,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump 2016 campaign aide turned critic. “I think they underperformed and I think they got lucky it was a big field.”

Nunberg noted that Trump had a lot of advantages in the primary and still struggled to win a majority of GOP votes in the early contests.

“I don’t judge them on parking a car properly,” Nunberg added. “Let’s see you win the general election and then we’ll see how good you are.”

"Calming presence"

Trump’s 2024 general election campaign got off to a slow and calamitous start, with the former president stuck in a Manhattan courtroom for weeks leading up to a conviction on 34 felony counts.

Wiles helped coordinate courtroom visits from top supporters and made appearances herself, while helping to plot a campaign strategy that included events around New York.

"In a way, as awful as the trial was, it presented what I think is a good opportunity to do some things that broaden the party and the president’s base a little bit since we were stuck already in New York,” she said.

More importantly, allies say, she projected calm and never panicked.

In that way, Wiles is a lot different than Trump campaign leaders of the past, such as Corey Lewandowski, Steve Bannon and Brad Parscale, who were more hot tempered and aggressive and eventually lost their jobs, in Bannon's case after he joined Trump's White House. Trump’s past campaigns also were filled with much more drama.

“There are no stories this cycle about infighting and back biting and drama,” Spicer noted.

Trump’s past campaign leaders often have butted heads with him because they tried to manage him too much, Gingrich said. Wiles is more tactful, observers say.

“She’s not confused,” said Gingrich, who in 2016 was among the finalists who didn't ultimately get picked to be Trump's running mate. “She understands that she is in fact his agent, he’s not hers.”

Wiles still acts as a gatekeeper at times. She's judicious in her efforts to control access to Trump, though, and how she tries to influence him, observers say. Wiles knows she can’t really control him and doesn’t try, they say.

Yet Wiles has enormous influence behind the scenes as somebody Trump trusts. She is now one of his longest serving advisers, having worked on all of his campaigns and served as a top political aide for more than three years.

On issues such as who will be Trump’s running mate, his campaign likes to say that only Trump will make that decision. Wiles is the one coordinating the search, though. She vetted all the contenders, digging through their records and making sure Trump had “full visibility into all of it,” she said, while noting that the campaign team doesn't try to influence or advocate for any person.

“Besides the boss,” said an individual close to the campaign, "she has probably the biggest vote."

Reporter David Jackson contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump's secret weapon: Mild-mannered Florida woman Susie Wiles