Donald Trump demoted the manager of his stuttering reelection campaign late on Wednesday night, replacing Brad Parscale with Bill Stepien less than four months before polling day.

Parscale, who had an unusually visible presence, appearing in campaign videos and warming up the crowd at rallies, will move to a role advising on digital and data operations, while Stepien, currently his deputy, will take day-to-day charge of the campaign.

Questions over Parscale's position have grown since a disastrous campaign "reboot" rally in Tulsa last month, which attracted just 6,000 supporters despite claims over one million people had registered to attend.

Trump has also reportedly clashed with Parscale, who had no background in politics before running digital operations for the 2016 campaign, over the amount of money he was making from the reelection bid. He was appointed as campaign manager in February 2018.

Stepien is a longtime Trump aide who previously served on the 2016 campaign and as a senior adviser to Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016.

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The long-rumored shakeup came with Trump falling further behind Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the polls, driven by dissatisfaction over the president's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday put Biden 15 points ahead of Trump nationally, up seven points from June, and also indicated more voters now trust the Democrat on the economy. It found only 36 percent of Americans think the president is doing a good job, his lowest score in two years, and 44 percent approve of his handling of the economy, a three-year low.

"There is no upside, no silver lining, no encouraging trend hidden somewhere in this survey for the president," Tim Malley, a Quinnipiac University polling analyst, said in a statement.

A new NBC/WSJ poll gave Biden an 11-point lead, up from seven points a month earlier. State-by-state polling averages paint an even bleaker picture for Trump, with the former vice president holding leads across battleground states and competitive in Texas and Georgia.

Trump changed campaign manager twice in the run-up to his victory in the 2016 election, but it's not clear how Stepien's promotion will address the fundamental problem with his candidacy.

A surge in COVID-19 cases, often in states the president encouraged to reopen, has added to voter dissatisfaction with his leadership. The NBC/WSJ poll found 59 percent of voters disapprove of his handling of the crisis, a sharp rise since last month.

Trump insisted the situation was improving for both his campaign and the country in a tweet confirming Stepien's promotion on Wednesday. 

"I look forward to having a big and very important second win together," he tweeted. "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!"

While many countries have managed to control the spread of the virus while gradually reopening their economies, cases continue to surge in the U.S. 

Florida, the pivotal swing state where Trump plans to deliver a speech to the Republican National Convention next month, has had more than 10,000 new cases a day for the past week. Over 137,000 Americans have now died from the disease and more than 3.4 million have been infected.

(Cover photo: President Donald Trump speaks during an event at UPS Hapeville Airport Hub, Atlanta, Georgia, July 15, 2020. /AP)