Former President Donald Trump is making changes to his campaign team as Americans already vote early and Election Day is just three weeks away.
He is naming adviser Tim Murtaugh, who also advised his 2020 campaign, to lead communications at his press operation.
The campaign is not presenting it as a shake-up, and the move comes at a time when Trump has seen an improvement in the polls after a rebound ahead of the Democratic convention and what his team sees as a successful debate performance.
His role will allow him to lead the investigation, rapid response and social media, two sources said. axioswho reported the measure.
The news follows signs of an internal power struggle that resulted in Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski having his portfolio circumscribed and taking on the role of a prominent surrogate in television appearances.
When he rejoined the campaign in August, Lewandowski called it an “all hands on deck” moment and referred to himself as a “personal envoy.” He then flew with Trump to his epic debate against Joe Biden.
Former President Donald Trump continues to make changes to his campaign structure just weeks before Election Day.
Following reports that he had been sidelined by campaign co-chair Susie Wiles, Lewandowski returned to Trump’s campaign plane for his Saturday rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A Trump official told The Guardian that Lewandowski “blew himself up” after joining an “entire staff that has been working together for two years.” But Trump has long looked to him for guidance as part of the core group that backed his successful 2016 candidacy.
Murtaugh himself is a late addition, although he honed his skills in Trump’s world during the 2020 campaign.
Trump campaign adviser Tim Murtaugh will oversee investigation, rapid response and social media in his new leadership role.
Trump’s unusual campaign structure still has Wiles and Chris LaCivita in top positions, and the candidate continues to take his own advice on key decisions.
Trump was credited with a relatively disciplined primary effort under Wiles and LaCivita.
But he has had some communications stumbles in recent weeks, even as he kept Vice President Kamala Harris dead even in key “blue wall” states that Joe Biden governed.
On Thursday in Detroit, Trump said that if Harris wins, “the whole country will end up like Detroit.”
That was seen as an own goal in a crucial battleground, and Harris’ running mate immediately criticized the comments at a rally in Warren, Michigan.
Harris’ camp immediately posted an announcement about it, with plans to air it during Sunday’s Detroit Lions game.
Sources told DailyMail.com during the August campaign personnel changes that this was not a reshuffle. Former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Trump was “superstitious about getting the gang back together” and that he combined the “hunger, arrogance, underdog, underestimation and joy-at-work ego of 2016” with “the props of a well-funded and organized organization. , professionalized campaign structure.’
‘The Trump campaign has the best communications professionals in current politics. No one else is even close,” Wiles told Axios.
The change comes with Trump and Kamala Harris tied in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Michigan, all states that Trump won in 2016 but lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
Harris has a lead of about 2 percent in national polls, but it is the battleground states that will determine the outcome.
