A top aide to Donald Trump reportedly resigned from her post on Monday after claiming she was no longer comfortable with the direction of his presidential bid.
“It is clear the campaign is now going in a direction that I am no longer comfortable with and I have decided to move on,” Healy Baumgardner, a longtime political operative who worked on the communications side of the GOP nominee’s campaign, told Bloomberg Politics on Friday.
Though she still intends to vote for Trump in the upcoming November election, Baumgardner said differences between Trump’s national campaign and staffers involved in his Florida operation prompted her exit.
Campaign volunteers in the crucial battleground state specifically disagreed with Trump’s plan to spend $40,000 on a mobile advertisement for women in Florida, Baumgardner told Bloomberg. Volunteers have also struggled to obtain bumper stickers, yard signs and other items emblazoned with the Trump-Pence logo to distribute to supporters throughout the state.
Baumgardner was a frequent presence at campaign rallies for Trump and appeared on CNN more than once to debate his critics. Her resignation came hours after the billionaire issued a series of late-night tweets targeting former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, who was mentioned by Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate on Monday.
Trump trails Clinton by 1.2 percentage points in Florida, which has become a must-win state for his campaign, according to the latest RealClearPolitics state-level polling average.
