Amid sluggish polls that show him struggling to find footing against Democratic rival Joe Biden, President Trump announced he will promote deputy campaign manager Bill Stepien to campaign manager.
The president shared on Wednesday that current campaign manager Brad Parscale will become a senior adviser to his reelection campaign and will also continue his work leading the digital and data strategies team. Some analysts had predicted Parscale could be demoted after Trump’s first campaign rally since the coronavirus began in March was sparsely attended in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“I am pleased to announce that Bill Stepien has been promoted to the role of Trump Campaign Manager,” Trump wrote on Facebook. “Brad Parscale, who has been with me for a very long time and has led our tremendous digital and data strategies, will remain in that role, while being a Senior Advisor to the campaign. Both were heavily involved in our historic 2016 win, and I look forward to having a big and very important second win together. This one should be a lot easier as our poll numbers are rising fast, the economy is getting better, vaccines and therapeutics will soon be on the way, and Americans want safe streets and communities!”
Jared Kushner, who oversees Trump’s political operation, weighed in on the move Wednesday evening, calling both men “unsung heroes of the 2016 campaign” before backing each of their roles going forward. Stepien, who joined the White House as political director in 2017, views Kushner as a personal friend.
A source close to the White House told the Washington Examiner last week that Stepien was hired in May with the intention of replacing Parscale and that this was likely to occur before the end of July.
“They’re desperate for professional help,” the person said.
“He’s a Christie guy,” the source continued, referring to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose two gubernatorial races Stepien managed before serving as his chief of staff. By Friday, Stepien was the favorite among a half-dozen or so potential Parscale replacements.
A source close to the campaign said former Ronald Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins had been “shopping his resume around, so to speak” but noted he was an unlikely pick. Rollins is on television a lot, “and they think that means he knows what he’s doing,” another source said.
Choosing Rollins “would cause an absolute revolt within Trump’s base,” conservative radio show host John Fredericks told the Washington Examiner. Stepien, like Rollins, is an “establishment” Republican, Fredericks said.
With just months until November’s election, Biden holds a double-digit lead in some national polls and has turned Republican-held states such as Ohio and Iowa into election targets. The result was growing speculation that a campaign overhaul was coming and frequent reports of Trump’s displeasure with Parscale’s performance.
“Brad’s a digital guy. He can nail the data,” said a former White House official. “The question has always been whether someone with so little experience of managing a big organization is the right person to put in charge of the whole campaign.”
Parscale’s association with the president began in 2011 when his digital marketing firm was hired by the Trump Organization to do website design and development. So when Trump launched his exploratory presidential bid in 2015, he turned to Parscale to build an online presence before being named digital director of the campaign the following year.
“When Donald Trump became [a presidential] candidate, we didn’t have any money other than Mr. Trump’s money, and I don’t think he wanted to write that check all himself,” he told a web summit in Portugal a year later. “We needed to create a grassroots campaign, and we needed to go out and find millions of people to be our supporters, and Facebook allowed us to do that in alarming numbers, very fast.”
Parscale’s work targeting specific audiences was credited with playing a crucial role in identifying and winning over voters in the swing states that ultimately decided the election. He developed a close relationship with the president and his family, most notably with Kushner, and in 2018, he was named campaign manager for the 2020 reelection effort.
But his presence in the president’s inner circle courted controversy almost from the outset. Some strategists warned his incendiary messaging would alienate moderate voters, and CNN refused to broadcast a commercial he worked on featuring a migrant caravan and an immigrant who had killed law enforcement officers.
