Nearly a third of the way through his tour of every county in Iowa, Ron DeSantis reportedly now has a campaign chairperson in every region of the state as he begins to surge campaign resource into the all important bell weather state.
Never Back Down, the super PAC backing the presidential run of the governor of Florida, has formed 120 county-level chairmen across the state, with at least one in each of the 99 counties.
Along with other GOP activists, the chair group consists of the sheriff of Appanoose County, Gary Anderson, a former state senator named Mark Chelgren, the supervisor of Buchanan County, Clayton Ohrt, and others.
The DeSantis campaign continues to aggressively network in the state that hosted the nation’s first caucus, as seen by the county-level hiring, despite the fact that his campaign has been plagued by poor polling results and tactical blunders.
DeSantis removed his campaign manager, Generra Peck, earlier this week after the campaign recently let go of a third of its personnel.
But DeSantis is working hard to reduce the gap between himself and Donald Trump in Iowa, specifically. In national Republican primary surveys, the former president is well ahead, with a slightly narrower margin in Iowa.
DeSantis has been traveling the state in recent weeks, and he was back for campaign events on Thursday and Friday before sitting down with Governor Kim Reynolds on Saturday at the state fair.
This campaign swing comes after a string of weekends spent traveling around Iowa, including intimate retail political gatherings with a select group of supporters and bigger town hall meetings where he fielded questions from the public.
DeSantis has been eroding former President Trump’s advantage in the state while pursuing his all-in-on-Iowa plan.
The governor of Florida is promoting his participation in the upcoming Republican National Committee primary debate, which Trump has not yet agreed to attend.
The former president reaffirmed on Wednesday that he would not sign the committee’s loyalty pledge, which is a condition to join, and that he would make his choice public next week.
The two front-runners in the race are both scheduled to appear this weekend at the Iowa State Fair.
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