Carly Fiorina’s presidential campaign lags behind many other major campaigns in terms of fundraising, but has picked an Oklahoman woman the campaign calls a “small business expert” to help right the ship.
Terry Neese, the founder of Terry Neese Personnel Services and the Institute for the Economic Empowerment of Women, will be the campaign’s national finance chairwoman. She is a member of the U.S. Afghan Women’s Council and a former president of the National Association of Women Business Owners.
In her new role, Neese will try to keep up with the super PAC supporting Fiorina’s campaign. CARLY for America, a super PAC supporting Fiorina, has raised more than twice the campaign’s total fundraising haul, as the Washington Post previously noted.
Steve DeMaura, executive director of the CARLY for America super PAC, told the Washington Examiner he was not worried about duplicating the campaign’s fundraising efforts and was happy with Fiorina’s performance in early polls, which show her behind more than a dozen other candidates. CARLY for America, which reportedly collected a $500,000 check from a super PAC backing Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign, will focus on the ground game in early nominating states and direct media to voters.
While Fiorina does not appear poised to make the main stage of the first nationally televised debate on Fox News next week, DeMaura said he is not concerned. But he said he thinks the debate organizers could have done a much better job choosing who would be on-stage.
“I think it [the debate] certainly lacks creativity, imagination, and an understanding of how the nominating contest works, but it’s the criterion they chose,” DeMaura said. “I think there are a lot of problems with national polls.”
Fox News has changed the rules and format surrounding its debate multiple times, but the network has said it plans to include the top ten candidates according to recent national polls on its primetime debate stage. It will hold another debate at 5 p.m. EDT before the main event. The earlier debate will feature candidates who failed to crack the top 10 in the polls.
RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Fiorina in 14th place, meaning she would likely appear at the afternoon debate with other also-ran candidates that did not place in the top tier.
