Is Rick Perry the first to go???

Rick Perry presidential run on death watch

The former Texas governor is reorganizing his Iowa staff — a development that could signal the beginning of the end.

By Alex Isenstadt and Katie Glueck

The Rick Perry death watch is on.

The former Texas governor, who hoped he would fare better in this presidential election than in his disastrous 2012 try, is poised to reorganize his already under-funded and under-manned staff in Iowa — a development that some of his top aides concede may be the beginning of the end.

The plans were announced on a Monday conference call with Perry’s campaign aides. During the call, according to two campaign officials, the aides were informed that a reorganization was being worked out and would be completed either late this week or early next week. While the campaign did not detail the changes, some on the call said they expect them to be dramatic.

One Republican operative in Iowa said that half a dozen Perry staffers currently working in the state contacted him on Monday to inquire about job prospects. Also on Monday, Sam Clovis, Perry’s Iowa co-chairman and a prized operative, announced that he was departing the campaign, and on Tuesday confirmed that he was defecting to be national campaign co-chair and senior policy adviser to Donald Trump, who has zoomed to the top of the pack.

There are plenty of examples of campaigns recovering from near-death experiences, from John McCain in 2008 to Newt Gingrich in 2012. But the alarming signs of financial distress are increasing for the former Texas governor, with many on his campaign staff girding for deep cuts in Iowa — a state Perry has made the focus of his presidential aspirations, but where he finds himself badly trailing.

Some political operatives in Iowa believe that Perry may choose to limit his presence in the state moving forward — perhaps intensifying his focus on South Carolina, another key early state.

“We’re going through a restructuring. We’ll know by the end of the week what our team looks like going forward,” said Robert Haus, a veteran Republican strategist in the state who led Monday’s conference call, which was held with other staffers in the state. “Every campaign does a periodic review,” he added. “How do we maximize our resources to get the job done?”

It’s a crushing comedown for Perry, who has already lived through one imploding campaign: In 2011, he entered the Republican contest as the presumptive front-runner, but his campaign quickly fell apart amid disastrous debate appearances, culminating in his “oops” moment in a primary debate. Perry, who at the time was recovering from back surgery, has chalked those missteps up in part to poor health, and returned to the national stage in recent years determined to show that last cycle was an aberration from the otherwise-successful political record of the longest-serving governor in Texas history.

In the years since, Perry — with his fashionable new glasses — sought to brand himself as a serious-minded policy wonk, crisscrossing the country to deliver speeches on the perils of threats from abroad and spending months holding sessions with top conservative policy experts.

Yet Perry’s 2016 hopes have begun to fade. Overshadowed by fresher faces like Marco Rubio, better fundraisers like Jeb Bush, and louder voices like Donald Trump, the former governor has taken a nose-dive in state and national polls. He failed to qualify for the prime-time Republican debate in Cleveland, and, earlier this month, amid fundraising troubles, the campaign acknowledged that it had stopped paying staffers (though some payments have resumed).

Still, a cluster of super PACs supporting Perry, Opportunity and Freedom PAC and its affiliates, has sought to pick up the slack by propping up the former Texas governor with TV ads and the beginnings of a field staff in Iowa. The groups pulled in $17 million in the last fundraising report, far outpacing the campaign’s haul of around $1 million, and looks poised to aid Perry for as long as he is interested in running.

A Perry spokeswoman, Lucy Nashed, declined to comment on Perry’s staff woes, other than to say: “Gov. Perry remains committed to competing in Iowa, as well as South Carolina and New Hampshire, and there are many people across the country who continue to work to elect Rick Perry as president.”

Perry is expected to lose other key Iowa staffers in the coming days as details of the restructuring plans come down. But Haus, who worked on Perry’s 2012 campaign, said he was staying aboard.

“I told [Perry] I’ll be with him [until we] turn the lights off, in whatever capacity they want me to be in,” Haus said. “My support for him will never waver, I’ll caucus for him … when I give my support like that, I’m a loyal guy, that’s what I do.”

Staffers were informed of Monday’s call on Sunday night, when they received an email from Andy Swanson, another Perry aide in the state.