People who know the media-savvy former Democrat with plans of launching her own fashion line describe her as a much better fit for Trump than she is for Cruz. Allies of the Texas senator painted a picture of an activist more interested in self-promotion than in the unglamorous work of political organizing and said there was no clamor from Cruz’s campaign to bring her on board.

“My eight-year-old did more work for Ted than she ever thought about doing,” said one activist who has organized on behalf of both Cruz’s Senate run and his presidential campaign.

Pierson, who professed her continuing admiration for Cruz, dismissed such criticism as “sour grapes.” But she agreed that Trump suits her better. “This is a nontraditional campaign,” she said. “I can be a little bit more who I am. That’s what I mean when I say it’s like a perfect fit.”

Of Trump, she said, “He’s sort of not politically correct. He sort of calls it like he sees it. I’m kind of that way too.” Pierson, a frequent guest on cable news, said that in her new role on staff she will continue to do what she has been doing for the past several months for free: touting Trump’s message on television.

And as the new face of the Trump campaign, Pierson’s ability to shine on camera will not go to waste.

“She is definitely very good at building her brand, she likes to be out there commenting on things” said a Texas Republican familiar with Cruz world. “It’s a great opportunity for her.”

Tom O’Halloran, a Texas radio host and self-described “gun-carrying, radical, right-wing super villain,” described the hire as a win-win. “It’s certainly a step up from the arena she’s in,” he said, adding that the 39-year-old activist can expand the appeal of Trump’s message. “It provides them with a younger crowd.”

Like her new boss, Pierson does not shrink from controversy. On Monday, she went even further than Trump has gone in transcending the normal bounds of mainstream political discourse, writing on Facebook, “Islam preys on the weak and uses political correctness as cover. Two things that Americans won’t be concerned with when @realDonaldTrump is in the White House.”

It also helps that Pierson shares Trump’s entrepreneurial bent, with plans in the works to launch her own shoe and clothing lines. Pierson said she has not discussed those plans, which remain in the conceptualization and design stages, with Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who presides over fashion lines of her own.

For Trump, who has a habit of hiring chic young women – his press secretary is a former Ralph Lauren model with no prior political experience and visitors to his offices in Trump Tower often remark on his bevy of attractive assistants ‑- Pierson’s camera-ready polish could not have hurt either.

Pierson’s slow-motion defection to Trump began at a Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Tea Party gathering, at which she introduced the Texas senator but also took a liking to the New York real estate developer and his tough talk on immigration, her top priority. Pierson told him she would like to pitch in if he mounted a presidential run. “I knew he would give Jeb Bush a run for his money,” she said.

After meeting Trump in Myrtle Beach, Pierson ran into him again later that month in the VIP room at Rep. Steve King’s Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines. Trump was enthused to see Pierson, according to a person present, and invited her down to Palm Beach to visit his private club, Mar-a-Lago.

Pierson ran into Trump’s aides the next month at CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland. But in March, she made a photo of herself conferring with Cruz at a 2014 awards banquet hosted by Texans for Fiscal Responsibility her Facebook profile picture.

Pierson, who has praised Trump -- especially for his hardline immigration stance -- in countless cable news appearances this year, raised eyebrows in Texas and among tea party activists in September when she publicly aligned herself with him. Introducing the businessman at a campaign rally at American Airlines arena in Dallas, Pierson called the Trump phenomenon a “revolution” and encouraged him to tear up his just-signed GOP loyalty pledge, stopping just shy of formally endorsing him.

On Monday, the Trump campaign announced Pierson’s hiring as its national spokeswoman, a move that took some Cruz allies in Texas aback.

“I’m absolutely surprised she went to work for Trump because he’s not a conservative,” wrote Texas state Sen. Konni Burton in an email. Along with Pierson, Burton was an early and active supporter of Cruz’s 2012 Senate bid, and was one of the few candidates running in 2014 to secure Cruz’s endorsement as she ran against another Republican in an open-seat contest.

(“Konni of all people should know that my work in the grassroots is first and foremost defeating the establishment, and I need no one’s approval for that,” responded Pierson.)

Others were less surprised. After Cruz’s election, Pierson did not find a place in his inner circle, and instead busied herself with her own, ill-fated congressional run.

When she mounted a primary challenge to Texas Rep. Pete Sessions last year, it came out that she had received federal unemployment benefits while assisting Cruz’s run. A 1997 arrest for shoplifting also surfaced. Pierson, who was 20 at the time of the arrest, fit it into a narrative of pulling herself up by her own bootstraps.

Born to a 15-year-old mother, Pierson grew up on welfare and gave birth to a child of her own at a young age, raising him as a single mother after her short-lived marriage to the boy’s father ended in divorce. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 2006, and following the election of Barack Obama in 2008, she threw herself into Texas tea party activities, which led her to Cruz’s campaign and her own challenge to Sessions.

The appeal of that life story proved insufficient to knock off Sessions, who cruised to an easy victory last March.

A Sessions campaign aide described Cruz’s support for Pierson in the primary as “half-assed.” While his father, Rafael, endorsed Pierson the senator did not — in keeping with his practice of staying out of primary challenges to incumbent Republicans. Pierson said she did not seek Cruz’s endorsement. “Rafael was good enough,” she said. “I love him. He is the same as Ted to me.”

After Pierson lost her primary challenge, she took a job as a spokeswoman for the Tea Party Leadership Fund, one of several PACs run by controversial attorney Dan Backer and described as “scam PACs” for tactics that include spending unusually high percentages of their funding on overhead. “We all have to pay the bills, but for Katrina, there is no principle that she isn’t willing to abandon for the right price,” said Matt Mackowiak, an unaligned Republican consultant from Texas.

“What price is that?” responded Pierson, “Is there a price we can talk about because I have worked my ass off at the grassroots since 2009 for 0 dollars. It wasn’t until I started working for the PAC that I was being paid for my time.” One Cruz ally, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid alienating Pierson, pointed to her work for Backer as the sort of affiliation that would make her unappealing to the senator’s campaign.

As for the Tea Party Leadership Fund, Pierson said that new PACs have to dedicate extra money to overhead to get started. Of its critics, she said, “They just don’t understand what it stands for so they’re going to criticize it.”

Pierson said she did not seek work with Cruz’s campaign and that she prefers the life of an outside activist, making an exception for Trump only because of his unorthodox style of campaigning – and because she believe he is the best candidate.

“Cruz would be a good president, but I think right now with all the hyper-partisanship in the country I think Trump would be the better person to transition out of Obama,” she said. “It would be a softer transition for some on the left. It would be a harder transition for some on the right.”

Besides, she said, “When Donald says, ‘I think you’re great I really want you to work for me,’ I don’t think any sane person would say no to that.”