David Jackson

USA TODAY

NEW YORK — As Donald Trump declared victory Tuesday to the sounds of Sinatra's New York, New York, opponents and analysts wondered if the re-emerging Republican front-runner is truly making a new start of it in terms of campaign style.

Trump claimed his easy Empire State win with an unusually short address — eight minutes — that featured more elevated rhetoric and less vitriol, a performance that many analysts attributed to a revamped campaign team that is trying to nail down the GOP presidential nomination.

"My team has been amazing," Trump said from the lobby of his Manhattan tower, the same venue where he launched his unorthodox campaign back in June. "It's actually a team of unity. It's evolving, but people don't understand that."

Trump wins big in New York, will score huge delegate haul

Avoiding the often rough rhetoric of his stump speeches, Trump referred to his main Republican rival as "Senator Cruz" rather than "Lying Ted." In an interview set to broadcast Wednesday night on Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor, Trump explained that he "thought it would be very undignified" to do otherwise, given the occasion.

In his Tuesday night speech, he also outlined the makings of an issues platform that includes blocking bad trade deals and illegal immigration, building up the military, replacing President Obama's health care law, and stopping companies from moving jobs overseas.

Some of his critics are skeptical of the idea of a new Trump.

Noting that the New York businessman built his campaign around an unscripted, blunt-talking persona, Republican strategist Liz Mair said it’s unclear "whether he will be able to maintain this tone, or indeed if that will be productive for him."

Early indications Wednesday were that Trump's new approach may indeed be short-lived. During a rally in Indianapolis, Trump hit on familiar themes in his stump speech, including a reference to "Lying Ted." At one point, he seemed to delight in pointing out a protester, saying "Get him out of here."

The founder of an anti-Trump political action committee called Make America Awesome, Mair also cited Trump's well-known comments about women, Mexican immigrants, Muslims, protesters, and others who oppose him: "No shift in tone, message, or policy at this point is going to erase anyone’s memory of how Trump has been conducting himself and his campaign for many, many months now."

Trump's apparent attempts at a new, lower-key style reflect the ascendancy of new campaign adviser Paul Manafort, analysts said.

"It's all Paul," said Republican pollster Frank Luntz.

Trump's delegate hunter signals aggressive push

Noting that Trump initially hired Manafort as a convention manager, Luntz said that the New York real estate mogul "got smart and hired one of the best in the business. And he's learned quickly that Paul knows a lot more than conventions."

Signs of the old Trump occasionally resurface, even during his New York victory speech. He attacked the media over reports of campaign in-fighting, and again ripped the Republican delegate selection process as "crooked" and "rigged."

And Trump still tweets, posting a message Wednesday taunting Cruz for now falling some 300 delegates behind and arguing that he can prevail in a general election matchup with Democratic front-runner (and fellow New Yorker) Hillary Clinton.

By taking nearly all of New York's 95 delegates, Trump now has a total of 845 to Cruz's 559, according to the Associated Press. The third Republican candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, has 147 delegates.

Despite the margins, Cruz and Kasich served notice they will continue to try and block Trump from securing the 1,237 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination on a first ballot at the July convention in Cleveland.

In a campaign memo, Kasich chief strategist John Weaver said Trump's only real chance for the nomination is a first ballot victory. "After that," he wrote, "a number of his delegates will move to us on the second ballot, and Gov. Kasich will ultimately prevail because he is the only candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton."

Cruz told MSNBC: "We're headed to a contested convention."

Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Poll, said Trump's 60%-plus win in his home state of New York "reset his numbers as a clear front-runner" and helps give the businessman at least a 50-50 chance of clinching the nomination before the convention opens July 18.

It's also clear that Trump's new advisers would like to see him maintain a more presidential persona and "lay off the personal stuff," Miringoff said.

"There may be a few bumps in the road on that," he said. "But that's certainly the game plan."

For Trump and Clinton: Battle won. But not the war

Top takeaways from the New York primary

Moving forward, five states will hold primaries on Tuesday: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware.

Trump is campaigning Wednesday in Indiana, site of a pivotal primary on May 3.

Republican strategist Kevin Madden said voters have been given glimpses of a new Trump before, "only to see him reflexively return to bashing his opponents and everyone else in the party." Madden said Trump has squandered previous opportunities to unite more Republicans behind his candidacy. If he had succeeded, he would have the nomination well in hand by now.

Mair, noting that "you can’t just pretend that problematic things you said and did never happened or will be forgotten or overlooked," wondered whether a new persona would even help Trump that much.

"The more he sounds ‘on message’ and like a conventional politician," she said, "the less appealing he’s likely to be to his base."