The Hill News

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) will headline a March fundraiser in the key primary state of Iowa, the state's Republican Party said Monday.

Barbour will headline the Iowa GOP's "Chairman's Dinner" on March 15 to help launch a series of events hosted by Iowa Republicans to prepare for their first-in-the-nation nominating contests in January.

“Building a statewide organization to compete with an Obama re-election machine will require unprecedented coordination and hard work by Iowa Republicans," Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said in a statement. "By taking the state GOP out of Des Moines and to every corner of Iowa, we will be prepared for that fight.”

For Barbour, the trip to Iowa suggests the 2010 chairman of the Republican Governors Association (RGA) is inching! closer to running for president. He visited Iowa during last fall's campaigns to help elect Gov. Terry Branstad (R), and visited South Carolina â€" home to another early, influential GOP primary â€" in January, to gauge support for a possible White House bid. Barbour is also traveling to Kentucky this week for a fundraiser, ! according to a report.

Barbour has vowed! to make the Hawkeye State a centerpiece of his campaign, if he runs.

"If I run for president, I will run hard in Iowa," the Mississippi governor told the Des Moines Register last week.

Iowa Republicans will announce more events this week, the party said.