Hi Red,
Depends on whether your PhD thesis is considered a publication in itself or not.
For example, in Australia, PhD theses are not considered proper publications (and are only if you decide to epublish them through your University, which I did not do), so you are encouraged to publish straight from your PhD. Rewriting is necessary, but to make it into a strong journal article, not because it 'needs to be rewritten.' I just had a paper accepted based on my last data chapter of my thesis (yay!) and it was in parts, rewritten and in parts, word for word.
However, I've been told that in some countries (I feel like Sweden or maybe it was Switzerland?) dissertations ARE considered publications, and as such, you can't copy and paste because it would then be plagiarism.
So I would look into requirements around that.
I also published a portion of my content analysis chapter as a publication before submission, and then reintegrated that into my thesis. I put in the acknowledgements: 'parts of chapter __ were previously published as "title" in Journal/Volume/ISSN etc.
But different countries/universities have different rules and regulations around this.