Donald Trump’s latest reshuffling of his presidential campaign appears to be the last straw for Republicans hopeful that he might yet defeat Hillary Clinton.
On Tuesday, Trump installed Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon as campaign CEO, and Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, already on staff at Trump Tower, as campaign manager.
Neither have ever run a presidential campaign, and while Conway is a veteran political operative, Bannon is a rookie in the field. That has veteran Republicans worried that inexperience at the top of the Trump campaign could lead to a Clinton landslide that could kill their Senate majority and sink other down-ticket candidates.
Bannon’s hiring in particular also signals to Republican insiders that their nominee is doubling down on his aggressive campaign style and penchant for controversy that got him into trouble in the first place. Trump himself described the hiring of Bannon and Conway as an effort to re-orient his campaign back toward emphasizing the temperament, tactics and policies that carried him to victory in the Republican primary.
That’s the exact opposite of what Republican insiders were looking for from Trump, and for some, there’s simply no more patience or goodwill left in the tank.
“Well, it looks like the Trump campaign has gone full Monty,” said a dispirited Republican operative who is publicly supporting Trump and requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.
It’s a bleak sign for Republicans who welcomed Trump’s decision to June to fire campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and elevate Paul Manafort. Republican insiders hailed the move as a sign that Trump was serious about acting more presidential, and it was followed by another sound decision: picking Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, an experienced, conservative Republican, to be his running mate.
The move led GOP insiders to believe that Trump recognized a more conventional approach to politicking was required to win. But lately, Republicans have watched as the New York businessman committed one unforced error after another, leading to a drop in most state and national polls, and concluding with this week’s latest shakeup.
Bringing aboard a savvy provocateur like Bannon, who also happens to run a website aggressively hostile to Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is being interpreted as Trump doubling down on this losing strategy.
Under Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart News made a major investment in Paul Nehlen, Ryan’s GOP primary opponent in his House re-election bid, giving the underdog a national platform he never would have had otherwise (his polling and local support were anemic) and helping him gin up support among Ryan’s out of state opponents.
The speaker defeated Nehlen easily, winning 84-16 percent, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Priebus was unhappy about Bannon’s hiring.
No statement on the changes at the Trump campaign had been issued by Priebus as of Wednesday evening, nor was a request for comment by the Washington Examiner fulfilled.
For some Republicans, the Trump campaign has turned into a bad joke — on them.
“I’m tired of pretending like we’re talking about something real,” said a veteran Republican strategist with ties to GOP leaders. “I heard that Mickey and Minnie were serious about bringing Donald Duck and Goofy back in the fold after a falling out over Euro Disney.”
One Trump supporter countered that the move would serve the candidate well because of the level of trust he has in Bannon and Conway (Bannon has been informally advising Trump for a while).
“Bannon’s understanding in how modern media works is very dynamic,” added this individual, a GOP lobbyist. “I’d also say that Bannon understands the need for message discipline. Donald Trump can be the change candidate if he stays with his message.”
But most see it as another error, and Democrats are gloating at the GOP’s intraparty warfare and attempting to use Breitbart to present Trump as embracing the “alternative right” community that includes white nationalists.
“And what has become clear from this is that no matter how much the establishment wants to clean Donald Trump up, get him on a teleprompter and get him on message, he has officially won the fight to ‘Let Trump be Trump,'” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said during a conference all with reporters.
Trump has a long way to go to take the lead from Clinton. Nationally, Clinton leads Trump by about 6 percentage points. A new collection of battleground-state polls publicized Wednesday confirmed the national numbers, as Trump was trailing by 10 points in Colorado, 12 points in Virginia and 3 points in Iowa.
With less than three months to go before the election, it’s late in the game to replace leadership at the top and hope for a good result. But Trump was adamant about making the change, explaining to reporters something he has said several times before — that he doesn’t want to “pivot” or change his message or how he delivers it.
It appears that Republicans finally believe him.
“One man ran this campaign 13 months ago; one man ran it four months ago — and Trump is still running it this morning,” a GOP strategist said.
