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The super PAC supporting a Ron DeSantis presidential run is ramping up hiring in Super Tuesday states, as the Florida governor is expected to soon formally join the 2024 fray.
In the coming weeks, Never Back Down PAC is moving to hire “dozens” of staff in the first 18 states on the presidential primary calendar, an early and aggressive plan that aims to set up DeSantis to be competitive beyond the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
“We’re not going to stop in the first four states, we’re building out for this grassroots movement for this to succeed,” Never Back Down spokeswoman Erin Perrine said, adding that other campaigns have not hired to this extent.
The Associated Press first reported plans of the hirings.
NBC News has previously reported that DeSantis early on was formulating a long-term strategy to secure convention delegates outside of the first four early-voting states. Perrine did not comment on whether the move was part of a delegate strategy. But sources have told NBC News that DeSantis was exploring how to lean into that strategy as a way to beat former President Donald Trump, who is currently the polling favorite in the GOP primary.
“There have been multiple conversations about delegates and how they are picked in various states across the country,” a DeSantis adviser told NBC News last month. “One thing that we have looked at is that Trump can be beat on the delegate portion of all this. He has never been good at that.”
The hirings in Super Tuesday states come after the PAC already hired in the first four states, including a half-dozen staffers in the Iowa operation, which has begun door-to-door canvassing, according to Perrine.
The PAC is touting its ongoing efforts to draw volunteers. One example it cited was in Oklahoma over the weekend — it signed up more than 25 percent of the hundreds of attendees at a state convention to volunteer for a DeSantis 2024 potential candidacy.
Trump's campaign dismissed the DeSantis group's activity.
“Seems like they’ve spent millions of dollars just to drag Ron DeSantis down into the teens," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said.