Trump Campaign Aims to Reset With Staff Shake-Up, Sharpened Data Focus

President 👤Donald Trump’s troubled re-election bid entered a new phase on Thursday after a leadership shake-up put a longtime Republican political strategist in charge of resetting the campaign even as Trump refuses to show more discipline.

Bill Stepien’s promotion to campaign manager less than four months until the Nov. 3 election is expected to sharpen the Trump team’s focus on the strategy needed to drive votes to the Republican incumbent in critical battleground states, sources said.

Trump is trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden in both national and battleground state opinion polls as voters heap blame on the president for his handling of the coronavrius pandemic, race relations and economic recession.

Stepien has a deep understanding of data and how to use the information to deploy resources and target voters, said Mike DuHaime, a Republican strategist who worked with him on Chris Christie’s two successful gubernatorial runs in New Jersey.

“There are not that many campaign veterans in the upper ranks of the Trump campaign,” DuHaime said. “Bill has worked on campaigns at every level. He can dispassionately read numbers and know what to do with them.”

But it is far from clear whether Stepien will be able to do what other senior advisers to Trump could not: rein in an impetuous, undisciplined president who has yet to produce a second-term agenda.

Stepien’s elevation is expected to enhance the power of Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is playing a lead role in the re-election effort, sources familiar with the situation said.

“He is 100% a Jared guy,” said one Trump adviser. “Jared is still running the campaign.”

LEADERSHIP SHAKE-UP

At what amounted to a handover ceremony, Stepien and the man he replaced, Brad Parscale, appeared together at the campaign’s headquarters outside of Washington on Thursday and spoke to campaign staff.