Reports are beginning to pop that Ted Cruz is on the brink of hiring the men who will run his campaign in Iowa, a state the Texas senator believes he very much has the chance to win come January 2016.

A well-sourced Republican operative in the state tells me Cruz is hiring 2002 Senate candidate Bill Salier, who run Tom Tancredo’s 2008 presidential campaign, and Bryan England, who has served as aide to both Iowa congressman Steve King and Bob Vander Plaats, the three-time Republican gubernatorial candidate and political activist. A spokesman for Cruz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Iowa Republican party who chronicles political developments in the state on his blog The Iowa Republican, said Wednesday afternoon that “word on the street” was that Cruz was in the process of hiring both Salier and England. He tweeted the following: