Taken together, the men are conservative media experts and masters of the political dark arts – meaning they can help Trump with campaign strategy and with a post-election media plan if he loses.
Advertisement
But a new Siena College poll finds that almost two thirds of voters think that Donald Trump at the top of the ticket will not help Republicans hold on to the Senate, and Hilary Clinton as the Democratic Presidential candidate will actually help Democrats regain the Senate, says Siena spokesman Steve Greenberg.
Mr Bannon’s appointment suggested that Mr Trump is aiming not so much to tone down his aggressive style but to be more disciplined in emphasising themes that resonate strongly with the voters he is trying to court, such as his stances on illegal immigration and withering personal criticism of Mrs Clinton. Manafort, who first joined the campaign in March, had presided over a period in which Trump had formally sealed the Republican presidential nomination after seeing off 16 rivals.
Mr Manafort will keep his title but Mr Bannon will be in charge of campaign staff and operations.
Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who has known Trump for years and gained his trust during her brief tenure working for the businessman, will serve as campaign manager.
The campaign said the changes come amid what it called significant growth for the Trump candidacy, “with the first major TV ad buy of the general election slated to start later this week and with additional top-flight operatives joining the movement on a near-daily basis”.
Lewandowski said Tuesday evening on CNN that while Trump may try to be “more inclusive”, Trump “knows who he is internally”. “This would actually take it in the opposite direction from where it should be going”.
Trump underscored that conviction Wednesday with a staff overhaul at his campaign’s highest levels, the second shake-up in the past two months. A longtime Republican strategist and pollster, she has close ties to Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. Conway-a longtime pollster who specializes in helping male Republican candidates attract female voters-cuts a much less controversial figure than Bannon, and is thus more hard to vilify. Conway is analytical and numbers-driven and often offers a more pragmatic approach to winning campaigns.
Trump’s standing in the White House race has plummeted throughout the summer and he now trails Clinton in preference polls of most key battleground states. Now, suddenly, he is the Trump campaign’s CEO, making him one of Trump’s top advisers. Wednesday’s announcements came less than three months before Election Day, and roughly six weeks before early voting begins.
In June, Trump dumped his then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who had been credited with the real estate magnate’s initial breakthrough in the primaries.
While many analysts see the move as taking power from campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Conway noted that Manafort and deputy Rick Gates are maintaining their jobs.
Also Friday, Ukrainian anti-corruption investigators released copies of handwritten ledgers detailing possible cash payments from Ukrainian political figures to Manafort totaling more than $12 million. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Manafort helped the party secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, doing so in a way that effectively obscured the party’s efforts to influence USA policy.
GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak said the optics of Trump’s “skillful” trip “look like he forced Obama to say he’s going” – but he warned that all the time Trump spends in Louisiana is unlikely to pay dividends on the electoral map in November. Lewandowski was charged with battery but the charge was later dropped.
“There has been no bigger cheerleader in the media for Donald Trump than Breitbart News, and he just hired his biggest cheerleader to continue massaging him”, said Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor.
Advertisement
All that makes Conway the ideal person to explain to Trump when, how and why his message is misfiring with certain groups.
