The Shadow Consultant: How Brad Parscale Slipped Into the Honduran Election

Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire

The aftermath of the Honduran presidential election has been marked with unease, anxious crowds, contested tallies, and a sense that unseen hands have been quietly rearranging the country’s political destiny. Among those shadows moves Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, a figure whose career has lurched from spectacle to scandal in the United States and has now slipped, almost unnoticed, into the bloodstream of fragile democracies abroad. His presence in Honduras is not loud, not advertised, but it is unmistakably felt.

Parscale reemerged in Honduras not with the loud bravado that once defined his presence in U.S. politics, but through a subtler, technologically driven form of influence. As revealed in The New York Times, he advised the campaign of Nasry Asfura, the right-wing mayor and presidential hopeful whose contest remains unresolved. His presence was not advertised to the public; it filtered out only through interviews, text messages, and the testimony of those who worked beside him.

The revelation alone might have raised eyebrows. But then came Donald Trump’s late-night endorsement of Asfura, followed abruptly by the unexpected pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted in the United States for collaborating with drug cartels.

Parscale insists he had nothing to do with either move, but the timing created the unmistakable impression of an American political machine reaching into Central America’s electoral bloodstream. Parscale’s decision to plunge into foreign politics is part of a broader effort by the Trump orbit to export its brand of populism. After years of intense scrutiny in the United States, some of it self-inflicted, he has found fresh demand abroad. His past in American politics was marred by questions about campaign spending practices, opaque business arrangements, and a widely publicized breakdown in 2020 that ended with Florida police pinning him to the pavement after his wife called 911. Critics within Trump’s own political circle quietly questioned his stability long before he was replaced as campaign manager.

His business ventures, too, have long raised questions. Campaign Nucleus and EyesOver, two firms he portrays as sophisticated political data platforms, have often seemed more like murky, closed-door enterprises whose pricing structures, technical capabilities, and client relationships remain stubbornly unclear. Former colleagues described them as part digital toolkit, part influence broker, and part personal revenue engine, designed to convert Parscale’s fleeting proximity to Trump into long-term commercial power.

In Latin America, however, the Parscale model has found fertile soil. His partnership with Fernando Cerimedo, the Argentine digital strategist notorious for amplifying false election-fraud narratives, has created a Buenos Aires-based consultancy called Numen, which now advises right-wing candidates across the region. Together, they have shaped campaigns in Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil, often leaving behind a haze of misinformation, grievance politics, and claims of stolen elections whenever outcomes proved inconvenient. According to the NYT report, Parscale did not visit the area during the Honduran election; however, he provided guidance to Numen’s team on utilizing data to effectively target voters, as stated by Cerimedo, who emerged as a key player in Asfura’s campaign.

Cerimedo has proven adept at invoking fraud without evidence, creating doubt even in races where results were clear. Parscale, meanwhile, provides the digital architecture, the voter-targeting apparatus, psychological profiling, and data manipulation techniques he once sold as the secret sauce of Trump’s rise.

Their methods have become a kind of portable populist kit. Candidates gain the aura of Trump’s endorsement; consultants gain access to new markets; and an already volatile political climate becomes even more combustible. The same contours are now visible in Honduras. As official tallies show Asfura trailing by a narrow margin, the National Party has circulated competing numbers, and Cerimedo has released videos predicting victory despite the data. The air is thick with the suggestion, never stated outright, but always implied, that if Asfura loses, the election must have been tainted.

Into this atmosphere, Trump again intervened, declaring online that Honduras appeared to be “trying to change the results,” warning ominously that “there will be hell to pay.” His words echoed across a country still tallying votes, still searching for clarity, and still vulnerable to the political turbulence imported from Washington.

What has emerged is not merely a story about a consultant drifting into foreign politics. It is a portrait of a new, extraterritorial ecosystem of influence built around Trump’s political movement, an ecosystem that blends data, messaging, intimidation, and spectacle into an exportable product. It thrives in nations with polarized electorates and weak institutions, where the mere appearance of proximity to a former U.S. president carries enormous weight.

As Honduras struggles through its contested election, the pattern has become painfully clear. Parscale’s companies provide the digital muscle. His partners furnish the narrative warfare. Trump bestows the symbolic blessing. And those caught in the middle are the voters of countries whose democratic processes have become laboratories for a political model refined in the United States and now repackaged for the world.

The story of Honduras is still unfolding. But whatever the final vote count shows, the fingerprints of an American political industry, one fueled by money, ambition, and grievance, are already indelibly impressed upon it.

IMAGE: Brad Parscale, President Trump’s former campaign manager, was expert in making campaign messages go wildly viral. (Source: Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times)

Kenneth P. Vogel, David C. Adams and Jack Nicas report for The NewYork Times…

Trump’s Former Campaign Manager Assisted Honduran Presidential Candidate

Brad Parscale advised the campaign of Nasry Asfura, a right-wing candidate who was endorsed by the U.S. president.

President Trump’s former campaign manager assisted the campaign of a right-wing Honduran presidential candidate who was endorsed by the American president and is now in a razor-thin contest to win the election. Brad Parscale, who ran Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign before he was replaced less than four months before the election, worked with consultants who helped run Nasry Asfura’s presidential campaign ahead of last Sunday’s election.

In the days before the election, Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Asfura, then announced the pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, a former Honduran president who hails from the same conservative party as Mr. Asfura and had been convicted last year of working with cartels to flood the United States with cocaine.

Mr. Trump’s moves injected chaos into the campaign’s stretch run. Election results are still being tallied, with a very narrow margin separating Mr. Asfura, 67, and Salvador Nasralla, 72, a sportscaster from another right-wing party. Mr. Parscale acknowledged that he advised the campaign, but said that he had nothing to do with the endorsement or the pardon.

“I had no contact at all with the administration, including the president, about the election in Honduras or the pardon,” he told The New York Times.

Mr. Parscale’s involvement in the campaign offers a glimpse into the ways that right-wing political interests around the world have sought to affiliate with the American president. It underscores Mr. Trump’s emergence as the leader of a populist wave sweeping the globe, as well as his increasing willingness to meddle in foreign politics on behalf of politicians who reflect his nationalist rhetoric.

The trend has also created lucrative opportunities for his associates and former advisers, who have advised politicians seeking to cast themselves as Trump-like figures in Albania, Republika Srpska and elsewhere.

There is long tradition of American political consultants heading overseas for big paydays after their candidates occupy presidential office. For foreign politicians, hiring operatives with ties to Washington’s ruling party can create the impression that they are in the good graces of the U.S president and have the influence to secure increased aid or trade with the United States.

There is an added incentive with Mr. Trump, who has used the levers of government to punish perceived foes at home and abroad. Mr. Parscale is well-positioned to capitalize. He runs companies called Campaign Nucleus and EyesOver that process and analyze data for political groups and other clients.

He has pitched his services to President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia, but nothing has come of it yet.

He has had more success in South America, where he joined with Fernando Cerimedo, an influential political operative in the region. The two men have been partners in a Buenos Aires-based political consulting called Numen for a couple of years. The firm advised the campaigns of Trump allies, including President Javier Milei of Argentina, for whom Numen worked in 2023, according to a Justice Department filing, as well as the successful campaign this year of President Rodrigo Paz of Bolivia.

Mr. Parscale assisted during the Bolivian election, traveling to the region during the campaign. He helped Numen’s team on the ground use data tools developed by his companies.

Mr. Parscale did not travel to the region during the Honduran election, but he advised Numen’s team on how to use data to target voters, according to Mr. Cerimedo, who became a prominent figure in Mr. Asfura’s campaign.

“Brad set up all the infrastructure that I work with,” Mr. Cerimedo said in a text message.

Mr. Parscale argued that the tools from Campaign Nucleus and EyesOver helped his clients in Bolivia and Honduras.

In a social media post last week, Mr. Trump called Mr. Asfura “the only real friend of Freedom in Honduras” and pledging to work with him to fight narco-trafficking and bring needed aid to the people of Honduras.”

The endorsement was widely seen as boosting Mr. Asfura’s campaign by signaling the prospect that he could usher in better relations between the two countries after four years of hostility.

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Source: https://21stcenturywire.com/2025/12/04/the-shadow-consultant-how-brad-parscale-slipped-into-the-honduran-election/