Trump win comes after staff shakeup
NEW YORK • Even as he secured a commanding win in his home state of New York Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is continuing to shake up his campaign with new staff, new strategy and an overhauled structure strikingly late in the game.
After several difficult weeks marked by a series of losses, Trump sounded confident Wednesday as he predicted victories in upcoming states that would help him clinch the nomination before his party’s convention.
But the win comes amid a serious campaign restructuring that has led to confusion about chains of command and less influential roles for Trump’s previously insular inner circle.
The role of newly hired c ampaign veteran Paul Manafort as convention manager has been growing behind the scenes.
“We’re in a diff erent phase of the campaign. And being in a different phase of the campaign requires different skills,” Manafort said after Trump delivered his victory speech in Manhattan.
“We’re in a phase where the end game requires winning smart, meaning we have to focus on not just winning the states, but what congressional districts we win and things like that. We’re bringing that into the campaign.”
Manafort, a veteran of Republican conventions, has been hired to oversee Trump’s delegate strategy as he scrambles to lock down a majority of delegates by the end of June.
He ran delegate operations for the campaigns of Gerald Ford in 1976 and Bob Dole in 1996.
The campaign also announced l ast week Rick Wiley, who previously managed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign, had been hired as national political director, overseeing the campaign’s field operations. The campaign is expected to announce additional hires soon.
“Not just me — he wants to bring on other people as well,” Manafort said. “We’re expanding the campaign. We’re building a campaign that’s got depth now, not just across the board.”
But the shakeup hasn’t been embraced by all.
Trump’s national field director, Stuart Jolly, tendered his resignation Monday. The decision was met by disappointment among many of his campaign field staffers, who viewed the departure as a significant loss.
In a telephone interview with Fox News, Trump insisted everyone on his growing staff “seems to be getting along pretty well.”
But he also acknowledged the potential for bruised egos when asked how his loyal inner circle has responded to what Trump described as the addition of “very high- level people” to his team.
“When you bring other people in, I could see some people, their feelings get a little bit hurt,” he said. “But frankly, you know, we’re in a position where we’d like to see if we can close it out.”