Sam Clovis, the highly touted Iowa campaign chair for Rick Perry, has departed the Texas governor’s presidential bid, the most visible wound yet from the campaign’s financial troubles.
Perry’s campaign stopped paying its staffers early this month, as it grappled with anemic fundraising. But those difficulties led to only one staffer splitting with Perry, the campaign said at the time.
Now, Perry is losing the man who the campaign once proclaimed as a “conservative icon” in Iowa, a state deemed critical to its presidential hopes.
“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,” said Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed. “We wish Sam the best in his next endeavor.”
The Associated Press first reported that Clovis, a popular talk radio host in the state who ran for U.S. Senate, had left Perry’s shop.