Who is Bill Stepien? Meet Trump's new campaign manager replacing Brad Parscale amid plummeting poll numbers
President Donald Trump took a key step in the run-up to his re-election battle in November on Wednesday, July 15, when he replaced his campaign manager Brad Parscale with Bill Stepien. Parscale, who has been with the president since his successful 2016 campaign, has found himself under the scanner of late in the view of Trump’s sliding poll numbers. Last month, Parscale came under fire from the Trump camp after his comeback rally in Tulsa failed to mobilize enough people.
Trump came up with his announcement on social media platforms (Twitter and Facebook) in which he said Parscale will not be out of the campaign but serve as its senior advisor now. He said both Stepien, the new Trump Campaign Manager, and his predecessor were heavily involved in the 2016 win and he hoped that it would be replicated this time as well. He even expressed a confident tone saying: “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!” Parscale will remain to lead the campaign’s digital and data strategies.
Trump himself has faced a severe challenge on several fronts in the months ahead of the election while the deadly coronavirus has affected nearly 3.5 million people and claimed over 137,000 lives in the country. He has found himself trailing his likely Democratic opponent Joe Biden in several swing states. Recently, Parscale, 44, tried to put up a brave face amid the challenges to say the campaign has just begun in an opinion piece in The Washington Post and slammed Biden, but it looks the top leadership is not convinced. The presidential election is a little over three months away.
Who is Bill Stepien?
The 42-year-old Stepien, who previously worked as a deputy manager to the Trump campaign, has also been the White House director of political affairs between January 2017 and December 2018. A native of New Jersey, he also managed the state’s former Republican governor Chris Christie’s gubernatorial campaigns (2009 and 2013), and served as his deputy chief of staff before losing his post in 2014 after Christie said he had lost confidence in Stepien.
A political manager
A graduate of West Morris Central High School and Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey, Stepien started his political career with an assignment in Anthony Bucco’s State Senate campaign in 1997 and Bob Frank’s US Senate campaign in 2000. He worked for Public Opinion Strategies and DuHaime Communications before managing Bill Baroni’s 2003 campaign for NJ State Assembly, the only GOP candidate to beat a Democratic incumbent that year. Stepien was the political director of the 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign in New Hampshire and also served as the director of the Republican National Committee’s 72-hour campaign in 2005 and 2006. In 2008, he was a regional campaign manager for late senator John McCain’s presidential campaign before he became the national field director and served former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani’s presidential campaign in 2007-08. In 2016, as mentioned above, he aided Trump’s campaign.
The biggest controversy that Stepien’s career saw was the Bridgegate scandal of 2013. He was slated to join the Republican Governors Association whose executive director Phil Cox once said: “With 36 governors’ races in 2014, Bill’s expertise and leadership will be critical to our efforts.” But the scandal saw Stepien’s chances getting nullified.
In 2016, Stepien helped Trump win the states of Wisconsin and Michigan that were considered as part of the so-called Blue Wall that according to some, Hillary Clinton had taken for granted, reported Courthouse News Service in 2017. NJ Representative Jeff Van Drew, who changed his base from the Democratic to the Republican camp last December, has also been aided by Stepien in his 2020 re-election campaign.
Recently, Trump promoted Stepien to the post of the deputy campaign manager and the man has already got his act together. According to the Washington Times, Stepien slammed the polls that have shown Trump trailing Biden by a big margin. He said media-backed polls are not reliable because they are made with cheap and inferior methods and are not flawless and unpredictable.
At the moment, Stepien is too busy. He is eyeing the biggest career victory this year by trying to clinch the second term for a cornered Trump.