HARRISBURG — Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is moving to become the first in the Democratic presidential primary to hire field staff and open field offices in Pennsylvania, early moves in a late primary state that could become an important prize if the nominee remains in doubt past March.

Warren’s campaign said it has hired a Pennsylvania campaign strategist to start next week and will bring on organizing staff and open a field office in Philadelphia in the coming weeks.

Democratic strategists in the state characterized the moves as aggressive, considering that top field staff from the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama primary race in 2008 recall getting hired no earlier than February or March.

They also saw the moves as the Massachusetts senator challenging former Vice President Joe Biden on friendly territory.

Biden has his campaign headquarters in Philadelphia and deep political inroads in Pennsylvania after living for decades just across the border in Delaware, as that state’s longtime senator.

Biden, who spent part of his boyhood in Scranton, used Pennsylvania as a backdrop to announce the start of his campaign. He has the endorsement of several of the state’s members of Congress.