Brad Parscale, President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign manager, is expected to see a number of top White House and administration aides join him as the president turns his attention to his re-election effort. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images White House 'Moving day': White House staffers set to split for 2020 campaign Trump's reelection campaign is set to take shape months earlier than Barack Obama's or George W. Bush's did.

The White House is poised for a wave of post-midterm departures as staffers leave for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, an indication that the administration is shifting its focus to 2020.

The first moves could come shortly after next week’s election, when senior Trump aides Bill Stepien, the director of political affairs, and Justin Clark, who oversees the Office of Public Liaison, are expected to take senior roles with the reelection effort, according to two people with knowledge of the plans. Both are heavily involved in the run-up to the midterms and held top positions on Trump’s 2016 campaign.


The list is almost certain to grow. Jessica Ditto, who has served as deputy communications director in the White House and on the Trump campaign, is widely expected to join the 2020 team in a communications role. Cabinet aides with political backgrounds — such as Jason Simmons, a Small Business Administration staffer who ran Trump’s North Carolina effort — are regarded as potential hires.

And on Thursday evening, the Trump campaign alumni group 45 Club is scheduled to meet at Morton’s steakhouse in downtown Washington to discuss how “members can get involved and engaged in 2020 after the midterms,” according to a copy of the invitation.

The coming wave has become known internally as “moving day,” a reference to the third day of a professional golf tournament, when players try to move toward the top of the field. The looming personnel moves provide a window into a White House that has begun looking beyond the midterms to Trump’s battle for four more years.

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“It’s entirely natural for this sort of movement to take place on the tail end of the election year after the votes have been cast and at the beginning of the new cycle,” said Danny Diaz, a veteran Republican strategist who worked on George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection bid. “The reality is that the president will be in cycle the minute the polls close on election night, and his team is well aware of it and planning accordingly.”

The anticipated shuffle is in line with what’s occurred under other presidents preparing to run for a second term. About six months after the 2002 midterm elections, several top officials in the Bush White House were dispatched to the reelection campaign. Former President Barack Obama began deploying multiple administration officials to his Chicago headquarters in January 2011, a few months after his first midterm election in office.

Trump is getting revved up even sooner. The president kept his Manhattan campaign office open after his election. Just a year after taking office, he tapped Brad Parscale to be his campaign manager. And he’s raked in more than $100 million for his reelection, far more than Bush and Obama had raised at the same point.

“I think just given the way politics is conducted, the amount of money spent, and the amount of sophistication employed by all these campaigns — either presidential or statewide — two years out wouldn’t at all be unusual,” said Sara Fagen, who served as political director in the Bush White House. “It would probably be imprudent for them not to start so early.”

White House officials say the departures of Stepien and Clark, which were first reported by The New York Times, are likely to pave the way for other campaign-minded aides to follow. The two are expected to serve as consultants and help oversee the GOP apparatus and outreach to grass-roots supporters.

With Trump nearing the two-year mark on his presidency and staff burnout on the rise, turnover is expected to intensify in the weeks to come. Scott Jennings, who served as a top political aide in the Bush administration, said it was critical for the 2020 campaign to bring aboard outgoing White House staffers who were already well acclimated to Trump, and not just to rely on people who are new to the president and his unusual orbit.

“I think what’s vital is that they recapture the people who are cycling out into the campaign,” Jennings said. “Trump is a unique commodity, and not just anyone can do it. What they need to do is to put together a team that has shown they can win with this commodity.”

Other preparations are underway behind the scenes. Trump political aides have been scouting out space for potential headquarters in Rosslyn, Va., just blocks from where Bush based his 2004 campaign. And Trump recently asked Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel to stay on for a second term, an offer she accepted.

One unresolved question, however, is who will stay in the White House and emerge as the point person between the administration and the reelection campaign, a critical position that in years past was filled by the likes of Obama aide David Plouffe and Bush hand Karl Rove.

One early contender for that role is White House senior adviser Jared Kushner. Trump’s son-in-law, who helped to install Parscale as campaign manager, has told people in recent weeks that he expects to remain in the White House during the reelection campaign.

The early and aggressive hiring plans are partly intended as a deterrent to would-be GOP primary challengers, sources close to the president say. While an intraparty fight is unlikely, White House aides believe, they are keeping their eye on several people they perceive as potential challengers, including Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and Govs. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Larry Hogan of Maryland.

“Donald Trump has to think about that,” said Matt Schlapp, another former Bush political aide whose wife, Mercedes Schlapp, is director of strategic communications in Trump’s White House.

Trump’s team is also motivated to convince doubters that the president is serious about seeking reelection. While the 72-year-old president has told those close to him that he will run in 2020, White House officials are aware that not everyone is convinced, and they’re intent on removing any doubt.

The resulting campaign that will take shape, Trump aides predict, will be very different from the chaotic and ragtag one they oversaw in 2016. They envision a cash-stocked, well-staffed national effort that will be well underway by next year.

But that could introduce its own share of complications.

“Running for president the first time is like being a startup and being successful,” said Jack Oliver, a longtime GOP hand who served as deputy chairman of the RNC under Bush. “Running a reelection campaign is like being a corporation that has all the headaches that come with being successful.”

