Donald Trump makes first ad buys in battleground states, including Florida
With his new leadership team promising a sharper message, Donald Trump on Thursday moved to invest nearly $5 million in battleground state advertising. The investment over the coming 10 days in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania marks the Republican presidential contender’s first major general election expenditures in the swing states, which are considered critical to his narrowing path to the White House. The advertising plans, confirmed by Kantar Media’s political ad tracker, come a day after Trump announced another senior staffing shakeup. Weary Republican leaders hope the new leadership team can reverse the New York businessman’s struggles even as some worry it’s too little too late. The Republican nominee tapped Stephen Bannon — a combative conservative media executive with no presidential campaign experience — to serve as CEO of his White House bid. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who has known Trump for years and gained his trust during her brief tenure working for him, will serve as campaign manager. “I think we’re going to sharpen the message,” Conway told CNN. “We’re going to make sure Donald Trump is comfortable about being in his own skin — that he doesn’t lose that authenticity that you simply can’t buy and a pollster can’t give you. Voters know if you’re comfortable in your own skin.” The Republican National Committee has already conceded it may divert resources away from the presidential contest favor of vulnerable Senate and House candidates if Trump’s standing does not improve in the coming weeks. RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer called Trump’s staffing changes the “healthy growth of the campaign at a senior level at a key point.” He also urged caution as Trump’s new team contemplates whether the fiery populism and freewheeling style that won him the Republican nomination will give him a better shot at the White House than uniting his party and rallying moderate voters. “I think people want him to be authentic,” Spicer said. “They appreciate he’s not a scripted politician, but there’s a recognition that words do matter.” The staffing changes are aimed in part at marginalizing campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a longtime Republican operative who pushed Trump to moderate his tone and improve relations with skeptical Republican officials. In breaking with that approach, Trump appears set on finishing the race on his own terms — win or lose. Trump’s divisive tone and weak poll numbers have triggered a rash of Republican defections in recent weeks. Party loyalists have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump’s inability to stay focused on Democrat Hillary Clinton amid a series of self-created distractions. “I don’t care if Donald Duck is running the campaign,” said Henry Barbour, a Republican National committeeman from Mississippi. “If he can make this thing about Hillary Clinton’s record and getting the country back on track, that’s what’s going to win this election.” Despite the new advertising investment, Trump is woefully behind: Clinton’s campaign has spent more than $75 million on ads in the weeks since she effectively locked up the nomination in early June, according to Kantar Media’s political ad tracker. Trump frequently boasts that his rival is spending heavily while he’s put nothing into advertising, banking so far on free wall-to-wall media coverage to carry his message. While his campaign has been silent through paid media, he’s had some assistance from outside political groups, Kantar Media shows. One, called Rebuilding America Now, has spent about $9 million in the past few weeks. The National Rifle Association’s political arm has also put more than $4 million into anti-Clinton messages. But these amounts pale in comparison to the $31 million the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA has spent on air since mid-June. And that’s just one of several groups helping her. Rarely do presidential campaigns wait so long to advertise, or undergo such a level of leadership tumult at such a stage of the general election. The developments come less than three months before Election Day, and roughly six weeks before early voting begins. Trump’s standing in the White House race plummeted throughout the summer and he now trails Clinton in preference polls of most key battleground states. He’s struggled to offer voters a consistent message, overshadowing formal policy speeches with a steady stream of controversies, including a public feud with an American Muslim family whose son was killed while serving in the U.S. military in Iraq. Bannon’s website has been fiercely loyal to Trump for months and sharply critical of Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan. Breitbart has also actively promoted false conspiracy theories about Clinton, and some have then made their way into Trump’s remarks. “Trump is on his third campaign manager in three months. If this was a hot dog stand, conclusion might be there was a problem with the dogs,” Republican strategist Stuart Stevens, a frequent Trump critic, wrote on Twitter. Republished with permission of the Associated Press. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump shakes up campaign staff again
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has slipped in the polls in recent weeks, has shaken up his campaign again. The billionaire real estate mogul is bringing in Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News as chief executive officer and promoting pollster Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager. “I’ve known both of them for a long time. They’re terrific people, they’re winners, they’re champs, and we need to win it,” Trump told The Associated Press in a phone interview early Wednesday. The move comes just 82 days before the November election and represents yet another overhaul of Trump’s tumultuous quest for the White House. Campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who formally took over the reins following the departure of Corey Lewandowski in June, will maintain his current title, Trump said. Manafort deputy Rick Gates, who has been traveling often with Trump, is expected to maintain a senior role with the campaign. The news, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes as opinion surveys show Trump trailing Hillary Clinton nationally and in a host of key battleground states following a difficult campaign stretch that saw him insulting the Muslim parents of a soldier who died in Iraq and temporarily refraining from endorsing House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was involved in a primary in his home state of Wisconsin. In tapping Bannon for a top campaign role, Trump is doubling down on his outsider appeal rather than appeasing more traditional Republicans. The conservative Breitbart figure has been a cheerleader for Trump’s campaign for months and was critical of Republican leaders, including Ryan. Bannon is a former Goldman Sachs banker but does not bring presidential campaign experience to Trump’s White House bid. Conway joined Trump’s campaign earlier this year as a senior adviser. A longtime Republican strategist and pollster, she has close ties to Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. Trump long has resisted pleas from fellow Republicans to overhaul the flame-throwing approach on the campaign trail that powered his surge to the top of the GOP field in the primary season. Instead of working to broaden his appeal, Trump has largely hewed to the large rallies and attention-grabbing comments that appealed to the Republican Party base. “You know, I am who I am,” he told a local Wisconsin television station Tuesday. “It’s me. I don’t want to change. Everyone talks about, ‘Oh, well you’re going to pivot, you’re going to.’ I don’t want to pivot. I mean, you have to be you. If you start pivoting, you’re not being honest with people.” Conway called the moves “an expansion at a critical time in the homestretch.” Details of the new pecking order were hashed out at a lengthy senior staff meeting at Trump Tower Tuesday while Trump was on the road. Additional senior hires are expected in the next few days. Trump, whose campaign is built on his persona as a winner, said several times Wednesday that the campaign was “doing well,” and said his speech hours earlier in Wisconsin Tuesday was well-received. “We’re going to be doing something very dramatic,” Trump added. Trump’s campaign announced earlier that it would finally begin airing its first ads of the general election next week in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. While polls have shown Clinton building a lead following the Philadelphia convention, Democrats are fearful that a depressed voter turnout might diminish support among the minority, young and female voters who powered Obama to two victories. Clinton said at a voter registration event at a Philadelphia high school that she’s “not taking anybody anywhere for granted” in the race for the White House, saying the stakes “could not be higher.” 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. “We reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton, which panders to and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes — that’s all they care about,” the GOP nominee said in remarks delivered not far from Milwaukee — the latest city to be rocked by violence in the wake of a police shooting. Trump has been lagging in the polls since he was crowned the GOP standard-bearer in Cleveland last month. He charged that Clinton has been on the side of the rioters in Milwaukee, declaring: “Our opponent Hillary would rather protect the offender than the victim.” “The riots and destruction that have taken place in Milwaukee is an assault on the right of all citizens to live in security and to live in peace,” he said. Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri responded with a statement early Wednesday accusing Trump of being the bigot instead. “With each passing Trump attack, it becomes clearer that his strategy is just to say about Hillary Clinton what’s true of himself. When people started saying he was temperamentally unfit, he called Hillary the same. When his ties to the Kremlin came under scrutiny, he absurdly claimed that Hillary was the one who was too close to Putin. Now he’s accusing her of bigoted remarks — We think the American people will know which candidate is guilty of the charge,” she said. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
