Trump, whose campaign is built on his persona as a victor, said several times Wednesday that the campaign was “doing well”, and said his speech hours earlier in Wisconsin Tuesday was well-received.
Advertisement
The shakeup followed a miserable month for the Trump campaign, in which the nominee made a series of gaffes and the high-profile defections of prominent Republicans both contributed to a steep slide in his poll numbers and approval ratings.
Trump’s decision to hire Bannon followed months of conversations between the pair.
“We absolutely expect with this change for Donald Trump and the campaign as a whole to double down on more hateful, divisive rhetoric, more conspiracy theories, more wild accusations”, Robby Mook told reporters.
A New Jersey-based pollster, Conway has worked in Republican polling since the 1980s, including for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s unsuccessful presidential campaign.
Conway called the moves “an expansion at a critical time in the homestretch”.
According to multiple reports, Trump chafed under direction from RNC strategists and his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, urging him to pivot towards a more conventional general election campaign strategy.
The appointments amounted to a demotion for Paul Manafort, who was brought on as campaign manager this year to professionalize Trump’s campaign but has struggled to get the NY businessman to rein in his freewheeling ways.
Manafort denied receiving any off-the-books cash payments for his work in Ukraine, calling the allegation “unfounded, silly and nonsensical”.
The shake-up comes as Trump faces criticism from many Republicans over a series of controversial statements and opinion polls show him falling behind Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the race for the November 8 election.
The Cook Political Report released a new electoral college map that projects how electoral votes will be cast based on which way the 50 states are now leaning.
Frustrated with his troubled candidacy, Donald Trump is hinging his presidential hopes on a risky bet: that the fiery populism and freewheeling style that won him the Republican nomination give him a better shot at the White House than uniting his party and rallying moderate voters.
In the Wisconsin outing Tuesday, Trump accused Clinton of “bigotry” and being “against the police”, claiming that she and other Democrats have “betrayed the African American community” and pandered for votes. Cross them off. And for anyone waiting for Donald Trump to suddenly become more responsible: Remember what a great American, Maya Angelou said. And he keeps telling us who he is, it’s time that we believe him. “It’s essentially, ‘dance with the one who brung ya'”. “But I think it shows that Trump is doubling down on the kind of voter he is already winning”, said Katie Packer, a GOP consultant who has lead the party’s Never Trump movement.
“The RNC right now is focused on spending its resources where it matters – trying to get Donald Trump elected”, Martin said.
Advertisement
On Wednesday, Trump is expected to get his first official national security briefing, a move that is done to ensure that whoever is chosen as the new president is informed when they take office in January. But the staffing change, hammered out Sunday and announced Wednesday morning, was seen by some as a demotion for Manafort.
