Donald Trump has insisted for weeks that he is in good shape to win a second term in November. But on Wednesday, the president acknowledged the problems he faces in reshaping his campaign leadership, removing manager Brad Parscale.
Trump announced in a Facebook post Wednesday night that Bill Stepien, the former deputy campaign manager, will now lead his reelection operation. Parscale, who has led the campaign since 2018, will continue to be Senior Advisor for Digital and Data.
Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC on July 15.
Photographer: Anna Moneymaker / The New York Times / Bloomberg
The shakeup comes with Trump’s political stance hit by the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 137,000 people in the United States and sunk the economy, once it was the mainstay of the President’s case for reelection.
Trump has received low marks for his handling of the pandemic, as well as for his response to protests across the country over police brutality, which has caused his number of polls to plummet.
Multiple polls released Wednesday showed Trump lagged behind his November opponent Joe Biden in double digits, and one showed that in managing the economy, the area where he had previously led the Democratic candidate, was now also behind.
Previously: Trump campaign faces calculation after falling short in Tulsa
Trump announced hours later that Parscale was out. His son-in-law, senior adviser Jared Kushner, had delivered the news to Parscale, who was at the White House for Wednesday’s meetings, people familiar with the matter said.
Photo credit: Tom Brenner / Getty Images
Stepien is an ally of Kushner, who is considered to be running the president’s political organization. Stepien was at the White House this week for multiple meetings, including with senior staff, as well as planning discussions about the Republican convention, according to the people.
“I am pleased to announce that Bill Stepien has been promoted to the position of Trump’s campaign manager,” Trump said in a statement. “Brad Parscale, who has been with me for a long time and has led our tremendous digital and data strategies, will continue in that role, while being a senior advisor to the campaign.”
In Stepien, Trump is turning to an experienced political operative to help straighten the ship. He previously served as political director of the White House and as senior adviser to former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Parscale, by contrast, had never carried out a major political campaign before being asked to run Trump’s 2020 operation.
Christie fired Stepien amid the Bridgegate scandal, but was never charged and denied his participation in the 2013 plan to close access roads to the George Washington Bridge to punish a political opponent.
Read more: Trump’s advantage over the economy fades as more voters now trust Biden
A change to the top of the Trump campaign was seen as inevitable after a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 20. Trump hoped to use the meeting to boost his campaign after months of coronavirus-related blockades. But only 6,200 people entered the 19,000-seat BOK Center, after Parscale boasted about 1 million registrations. Trump had repeated the enrollment figure during a Fox News interview.
Kushner began excluding Parscale from some decisions last month. He traded COOs without telling Parscale to follow Tulsa, installing Jeff DeWit and Michael Glassner, who had previously oversaw the protests.
The announcement of Parscale’s expulsion came the same day that Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt said he tested positive for Covid-19 after attending the rally.
The failed rally provided fodder for Parscale’s enemies, who accused him of using his position to enrich himself and build his profile, both no-nos in Trump’s world. Parscale has denied that he was abusing his position.
In the past few weeks, when his number of polls declined, Trump brought some of his 2016 campaign aides to his current staff, including Stepien and former spokesman Jason Miller, who is now a senior adviser. Stepien is a respected staff member who keeps a low profile, according to people familiar with the matter.
Previously: Trump leans toward self-pity with collapse of polls and worsening pandemic
“Stepien gives donors and agents the convenience of running the campaign at full speed,” said Republican strategist Bryan Lanza, who served as deputy communications director for the 2016 Trump campaign.
There have been deliberations on more additions, including a campaign chair, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
Trump shook up his campaign leadership multiple times during his first White House run, and downplayed the latest move as a sign that his chances of winning in 2020 have been reduced. “This should be easier,” he wrote in his announcement of Stepien’s hiring.
When asked at the White House on Tuesday if he considered himself an underdog, Trump said, “No, I don’t. I think we have a very good number of polls.”
But Trump received a dose of bad news in polls Wednesday.
A published NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll showed Trump lost to Biden by 11 percentage points across the country. A separate poll by Quinnipiac University showed that only 45% of registered voters approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, and gave Biden a 5-point lead. According to the Quinnipiac poll, more than six in ten voters said Trump was suffering rather than helping the response to the pandemic.
Parscale had been under fire for months. The campaign and affiliated organizations have paid millions of dollars to Parscale-owned ad, data and consulting buying firms, according to public documents compiled by a watchdog group, Citizens for Accountability and Ethics in Washington.
Dire warnings
Parscale, web director for the San Antonio, Texas-based company Giles-Parscale, announced the Trump campaign on websites and social media in 2016. His only previous political job had been for a San Antonio tax adviser candidate who lost .
In early June, Trump called Parscale and other top White House political advisers after polls showed a decline in support. Kushner participated in the meeting, as did Stepien and Trump’s top pollster, Tony Fabrizio.
External advisers had also issued increasingly dire warnings to Trump about his political position.
“He’s losing,” Christie said of Trump in a June 28 appearance on ABC News “This Week.” “And if she doesn’t change course, both in terms of the substance of what she’s discussing and the way she’s approaching the American people, then she will lose.”
Dan Eberhart, a major Republican donor, said he was pleased that Stepien entered. “Brad Parscale is the Corey Lewandowski of the cycle,” he said, referring to Trump’s campaign manager in the 2016 primaries. “He was used as a starting pitcher but he’s bringing someone else in for the bigger innings.”
– With the assistance of Bill Allison
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