The Republican National Committee on Thursday approved plans to dispatch an additional 300 field staffers to 18 target states in this fall’s general election, a move that comes as the Trump political machine ramps up its presence in battlegrounds across the country.

The deployment was confirmed by a party official briefed on the plans. With the new wave, the committee will have over 600 staffers spread out across the nation. Party officials, who noted they had already knocked on a million doors, said the canvassers would be promoting GOP candidates up and down the ballot.


The RNC’s 168 members and its chairwoman, Ronna Romney McDaniel, are gathered in Doral, Fla., for the committee’s annual winter meeting. President Donald Trump is slated to address the group on Thursday evening. Eric Trump, Trump’s son, made an appearance earlier in the day.