Donald Trump’s presidential campaign chair Paul Manafort has resigned.
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This may help explain why Trump is lagging so badly in a state where many thought he would be competitive – nationally, he is trailing Hillary Clinton among college-educated whites by 14 percentage points.
“Nobody understands how bad it is”, Trump told reporters, after briefly helping unload a truck of supplies while cameras captured the moment. And as the Keep the Promise 1 PAC ran attack ads against Trump, Conway herself appeared on cable television to criticize the Manhattan real estate tycoon as well.
Trump announced Friday that he had accepted Manafort’s resignation as campaign chairman, less than one day after AP revealed the scope of Manafort’s firm’s secretive role lobbying for Ukraine political leaders.
As someone whose first PR job was in a political PR firm, working on local, statewide and national campaigns, my ears perked up when I heard Mr. Trump’s statement.
Gates also directed the firms to gather information in the USA on a rival lobbying operation, including a review of its public lobbying disclosures, to determine who was behind that effort, the emails show. They have said, however, that none of the work had to be disclosed under the foreign lobbying law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). “Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success”, Trump said.
However, out of those surveyed, only 27% believe Trump would make a “good or great president”, while 55% believe he would be either “poor or terrible” – 43% specifically said he would be a “terrible” president.
His father didn’t want to be “distracted by whatever things Paul was dealing with”, the younger Trump told Fox News.
“I remain the campaign chairman and chief strategist, providing the big-picture, long-range campaign vision”.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Charlotte. With Manafort out, Trump has transitioned back to his original, Lewandowski-endorsed strategy of being himself.
The Clinton camp dismissed it as “teleprompter regret”. A latest Pew poll showed Clinton’s lead over Trump has come down from 9% to 4%.
The businessman and his running mate, Mike Pence, drove past piles of ripped-up carpet, furniture and personal belongings discarded on curbs. It’s not even clear whether Trump can maintain this new posture through the weekend.
The departure from Trump’s team did not surprise political consultants.
While Trump did bring in a new set of advisers in the past week, it appears all but certain his comeback strategy can not benefit from the proven building blocks of winning campaigns, especially when compared with the structure Clinton has assembled.
Manafort was not a cause but a symptom of the Trump campaign’s troubles.
Only in the past week did Trump place his first round of general election advertising – almost $5 million for TV commercials in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
He trails Clinton badly among Latino and African American voters, and among women of all races. That’s just shy of the $90 million that Clinton’s aides said the nominee collected in July for her campaign and fellow Democratic committees.
Trump was set up by his own ego, and the Hillary Clinton campaign knocked him down.
White voters are shrinking as a share of the electorate, from 88 percent in 1980 to 72 percent by 2012.
In a speech, he expressed “regret” for sometimes not choosing the right words or saying the “wrong thing” in the heat of debate.
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“Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity”, said Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster who worked for Florida Sen.
