Donald Trump’s campaign overhaul has inflamed an internecine struggle among three of his closest advisors, creating an atmosphere that multiple sources likened to a political “Hunger Games.”

According to interviews with more than a dozen people on or close to the campaign, staffers are increasingly dividing themselves into competing factions aligned with Trump’s three top officials – embattled campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who still commands deep loyalty among many of the people he hired; deputy campaign manager Michael Glassner, who has a growing group of supporters; and newly hired strategist Paul Manafort, who was elevated this week and is building his own fiefdom.


Trump’s expansion of Manafort’s portfolio to include a wide swath of campaign strategy, coupled with other related moves, were intended partly to address organizational deficiencies in a campaign run for months by Lewandowski – one that underestimated rival Ted Cruz’s ability to compete and failed to prepare for the delegate battle that will decide a contested GOP convention.

Multiple sources tell POLITICO that Trump increasingly came to realize the limitations of his team during the run-up to last week’s loss in the Wisconsin primary. That stretch coincided with his daughter Ivanka Trump having a baby, which limited her availability as a trusted adviser to her father. He was even caught off guard when he appeared on a Wisconsin conservative radio show without being informed that the host Charlie Sykes was leading the state’s #NeverTrump brigade, and he lost the state by double digits a week later.

The day after Cruz won Wisconsin, Trump met privately with Manafort, then Lewandowski was informed of the new campaign structure in which Manafort has primary authority on many strategic decisions previously handled by Lewandowski or his allies.

“Paul is not entering this campaign as a technician,” one Trump associate said. “He’s entering as a strategist.”

Additionally, in recent days, Ivanka Trump and her brothers Eric and Don Jr. have been huddling with their father in his office at Trump Tower as he attends to his business holdings and plots a path forward for his suddenly sputtering presidential campaign.

But Trump’s allies worry that the efforts to build a more serious campaign organization may be coming too late. The billionaire real estate showman’s path to the GOP nomination narrowed substantially after a lopsided loss in Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary, combined with the increasing effectiveness of Cruz’s delegate courtship and signs of traction with the #NeverTrump movement.

And there are signs of trouble for Trump in the upcoming states, where he has little margin for error if he hopes to lock up the nomination before the GOP convention.

In California, Trump’s aides are still looking for a campaign manager, and in New Jersey, the second-highest ranking staffer left this week. The states hold potentially determinative primary elections on June 7, the last day of voting.

“There is nothing,” said a person familiar with Trump’s footprint in California. “There’s a lot of good volunteers and that’s about it.”

In Indiana, where early voting began this week ahead of a May 3 primary that’s also a big prize, volunteers are complaining about the weak organization. “There’s no ground game in Indiana,” said a person involved in coordinating campaign volunteers. “I’ve got state team leaders in Indiana who’ve been furious for months … they’ve had no campaign material, no ground game, no nothing and they’re going into these states 15, 20 days before the primary and it’s just too late.”

One source, a campaign volunteer, said that Lewandowski blamed Glassner for the campaign’s lack of preparedness for the delegate fight emerging as pivotal to deciding the Republican presidential nomination. "Corey is always with Trump at these rallies, so he was depending on Glassner to do all the work organizing, at least that's what he told me," said the volunteer.

The desire to distance is mutual, according to another person close to the campaign, who said Glassner has complained this week of recent news coverage that portrays him and Lewandowski as a united front within the campaign. “Glassner doesn’t like being lumped in with Corey,” said the person. “Glassner’s trying to make sure that he’s separated.”

Though Lewandowski’s responsibilities have diminished, he remains tasked with overseeing Trump’s campaign events and traveling with the candidate, said one campaign official. “The goal is to make sure that Corey continues to help with the key things where he’s been helpful and good, and that’s making sure Trump gets around.”

Manafort has taken over some hiring decisions that had been the purview of a Lewandowski loyalist, Stuart Jolly, according to a source with direct knowledge of the campaign.

And multiple sources said that a campaign official named Joy Lutes, who is seen as close to both Lewandowski and Glassner, has emerged as a power center in her own right, executing an ongoing round of firings, and reaching out to former campaign staff suspected of leaking to the press.

Lewandowski, Glassner, Manafort and Lutes did not respond to requests for comment for this article. But Manafort in a Friday TV appearance left the unmistakable impression that he was in charge.

“I work directly for the boss,” Manafort said bluntly on CNN. “I listen to everybody, but I have one man whose voice is louder than everybody else’s.”

It’s not clear what Manafort’s increased portfolio will mean for Jolly, the campaign’s national field director, who had overseen a “strike team” deployed to organize in states like Texas, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Jolly referred questions to the campaign’s press office.

The in-fighting has further damaged morale inside the campaign, said multiple staffers and former staffers. They cited slow repayment of expenses, a confrontational management culture and mass layoffs in states that have already voted.

The campaign’s field director in New Jersey, Scott Barrish, who had clashed with his superiors, left the campaign in recent days, two sources told POLITICO. Barish, who had previously worked as regional field director for Trump in Florida, did not respond to requests for comment.

But one former staffer said “nobody trusts anybody” on the campaign. The former staffer, who stays in touch with current staff, added “especially since the shakeup, people are trying to save their asses, and throw their rivals under the bus, and campaigns don’t win that way.”

A former Trump adviser, who was among multiple people who left the campaign last month in protest of its management culture, said “it’s like the political Hunger Games right now.”

And another person who previously worked with the campaign said “right now, among the staff in the headquarters, everyone is trying to figure out where their loyalties lie, and whom they can and cannot trust.”