Donald Trump’s shake up of his campaign staff on Wednesday has further spotlighted the tensions between party officials and their presidential nominee, elevating an archenemy of Republican leaders to the top of the business mogul’s campaign.

In hiring Breitbart News chief Stephen Bannon as chief executive of his campaign, Trump has plainly rejected calls within the party to temper his controversial approach in order to broaden support in the general election. With Bannon, Trump is instead embracing the tactics, style and nationalist/populist themes that propelled him to victory in the primaries.

And his hiring will likely add fresh context and urgency to the question of whether the party should shift resources away from the presidential race to down-ballot contests.

Trump is also promoting pollster Kellyanne Conway from senior adviser to campaign manager, a shift intended to help him improve his dismal ratings among women and college-educated white voters, among other key demographics. Conway’s role, though, will be a bit unconventional: Instead of running the team at its New York headquarters, she will travel with the candidate on the campaign trail, likely providing real-time polling information and advice. Paul Manafort, who has pushed Trump to change course and adopt a more traditional strategy, officially remains as chairman of the campaign, but the staff changes suggest a demotion of his ideas and approach. Meanwhile, questions regarding Manafort’s pro-Russian consulting ties in Ukraine continue to hover.

In a memo to staff, Manafort said he would provide "big-picture, long-range vision" for the campaign, while Bannon would bring "a business-like, day-to-day leadership approach to the CEO position that is reflective of our leader, Mr. Trump."

The Trump camp framed the changes as an “expansion” of the team, “not a change in hierarchy,” and predicted that the candidate would not change his style.

"You'll see the same candidate who’s doing great speeches like he did yesterday,” a Trump campaign source told RealClearPolitics. “Somebody who’s been successful his whole life is not going to reinvent himself with 80 days to go."

If Manafort sought to push Trump toward moderating his message and tone, and accepting a more traditional campaign model, Bannon’s hire starkly reflects Trump’s desire to do the opposite. Under Manafort, there was some hope among many Republicans that Trump would try to unify the party and reach out to undecided voters; Bannon, meanwhile, has oriented his career around speaking directly and exclusively to the conservative base.

A sometime filmmaker, Bannon has never worked on a political campaign, but he has reshaped Republican politics as executive chairman of Breitbart News — an outlet whose policy and political influence has been felt like a blunt force on Capitol Hill and across the country, making enemies of GOP leaders and bringing a brand of populism formerly at the fringe to the forefront. On his radio show for Breitbart, Bannon affectionately refers to his audience as “rubes, nativists, xenophobes, know-nothings,” mocking the mainstream’s perception of his movement.

“Bannon is pushing alternative media to new dimensions,” Trump’s informal adviser Roger Stone wrote in an entry for his 2015 “worst dressed” list, which featured Bannon.

Bannon, a former Naval officer and Goldman Sachs alum, first rose to prominence among conservatives as the director of a string of films funded by the group Citizens United. Most recently, he produced “Clinton Cash,” released last year. But if Bannon has distinguished himself for sparking and stoking conservative fires within the GOP, his work has never targeted the undecided voters Trump would need to win in November.

Bannon "gets the anti-establishment strain,” said Republican strategist Hogan Gidley. “It seems like a good marriage between the two: One is an outsider candidate, and one gets the Republican electorate fed up with the establishment.”

But some strategists see the campaign’s new direction as further alienating Trump from voters beyond his base.

“Voters have not been happy with the establishment. The problem is when you win the Republican nomination, the goal is to unify the party and that’s supposed to be the base you can count on; then you go out and win other demographics,” said Rick Tyler, a former communications aide to Ted Cruz and Newt Gingrich. “I don’t know where he is going to make that up.”

Conway's promotion is designed to guide Trump on messaging and finding ways to make up ground. The campaign is set to air its first ads of the general election cycle in the key battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and North Carolina starting on Friday. "We're happy it's August and not October or November. We recognize there is work to do," Conway told PBS Newshour Wednesday night. "And some of that work is among independent voters, Republican voters, and some is among the Democrats who in the same polls say they don't much trust or like Hillary Clinton."

Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton took a dim view of the appointment. She tweeted:

With just 83 days until Election Day, Trump hired one of the most extreme right-wing voices to run his campaign. pic.twitter.com/geausYW6oD — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 17, 2016

While calls from Republicans to cut ties with Trump could grow, some strategists are cautious about GOP candidates and officials publicly distancing themselves from the nominee.

“The best way forward in my view is for every Republican to remind Americans about the historical dangers of a new Democratic president with majorities in the House and Senate,” said John Holmes, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The Clinton camp, meanwhile, welcomed the news of Trump’s latest personnel shuffles, and argued it indicates how much the GOP nominee wants to amplify, not modify or soften, the “nasty and divisive” statements and policies that molded his campaign from the outset. Robby Mook, speaking during a conference call with reporters, predicted Trump and his recast team would drive additional Republican voters and establishment members of the party to support the Democratic nominee, and would not narrow the large gender gap favoring Clinton among women voters.

"It’s clear his divisive, erratic, and dangerous rhetoric simply represents who he really is,” Mook said, describing Bannon, Breitbart News and Conway as similarly divisive Republican influencers. The Clinton campaign is prepared to encounter “more of what, in the end of the day, really scares voters about Donald Trump: the hateful rhetoric, erratic judgment and wild accusations and conspiracy theories,” he added, arguing that voters are rejecting that approach.

The news of Trump’s campaign shakeup swamped what might have been a positive news cycle for the candidate, following what was seen as a successful, teleprompter-delivered speech by Trump at a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday. The nominee stayed on script, promoting his “law and order” message and attacking Clinton.

Trump, though, feel most comfortable in his original approach. “I am who I am. It's me. I don't want to change,” he told the Wisconsin television station on Tuesday. “I don't want to pivot. I mean, you have to be you. If you start pivoting, you're not being honest with people."

Alexis Simendinger contributed to this article.

Caitlin Huey-Burns is a national political reporter for RealClearPolitics. She can be reached at chueyburns@realclearpolitics.com. Follow her on Twitter @CHueyBurnsRCP.