Haley Bolstering Iowa Campaign Staff Ahead of Caucus
DES MOINES, Iowa — Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has hired a new state spokesman and is adding additional regional staffers to flesh out her Iowa campaign effort ahead of next month’s all-important Iowa caucuses.
“You’re gonna see us all the way until the end,” Haley told the Des Moines Register’s Stephen Gruber-Miller on Thursday.
“We want to make sure we do whatever we have to to earn every single vote,” she said.
Gruber-Miller is the newspaper’s statehouse and politics reporter.
Haley has visited Iowa 59 times in the past year, compared to 104 visits by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and 17 by former President Donald Trump.
However, with her recent surge in the polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Haley, who is also a former United Nations ambassador, is looking to harness her sudden momentum in both states.
“I want to get a strong showing [in the Jan. 15 caucus],” she told Gruber-Miller.
Haley closed out her latest, five-day visit to Iowa on Thursday. She’ll be in New Hampshire the week after Christmas, and will presumably return to the Hawkeye State in January.
After a break for the Christmas holiday, DeSantis will be back in Iowa for a meet-and-greet with Gov. Kim Reynolds in Elkader, Iowa, on Dec. 29, while Trump will return to Iowa on Jan. 5 for appearances in Sioux Center and Mason City.
Vivek Ramaswamy, meanwhile, is continuing to campaign in Iowa throughout the weekend in an attempt to fulfill his goal of visiting all of the state’s 99 counties twice.
Earlier this week, Haley announced she’s hiring Pat Garrett, a former communications adviser for Gov. Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird, to handle Iowa press inquiries leading up to the caucuses.
Garrett worked on Reynolds’ 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial campaigns and served in her administration, as well as advising Bird in her 2022 campaign.
Worth noting, Reynolds has endorsed DeSantis and Bird has endorsed Trump.
Haley said her decision to bulk up her staff in the final month of the caucus campaign is an acknowledgement of how important the “ground game” is in the state, as is “making sure that every area is covered.”
Haley is also getting a little help from Americans for Prosperity Action, a national grassroots conservative advocacy organization that endorsed her this past week.
The group is said to have already employed several staff members and dozens of door-knockers to rally support on her behalf across Iowa.
In a post on the social media platform X, Garrett said he’s thrilled to join Haley’s team in the final stretch before the Iowa caucuses.
“Haley’s rise in the polls is real and it’s going to be an exciting couple of weeks,” he said.
The number of candidate visits to Iowa is based on information from the Des Moines Register Candidate Tracker.
Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue
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