WASHINGTON: As he looks to a November showdown with Hillary Clinton, the Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump dumped his controversial campaign manager on Monday in an effort to revitalize a White House bid that has stumbled in recent days. Trump, 70, has recently taken a hit in the national polls and sparked outrage with comments about Muslims in the wake of the Orlando night club massacre. With less than a month to go before the Republican convention, changes were inevitable. After weeks of rumors about dissent within his camp over how best to take on the presumptive Democratic nominee Clintons, the hammer came down Monday when campaign manager Corey Lewandowski left Team Trump. “Corey Lewandowski will no longer be working with the campaign,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement. “The campaign is grateful to Corey for his hard work and dedication and we wish him the best in the future,” she added. Trump’s team did not specify the terms of Lewandowski’s departure. Lewandowski was credited with Trump’s initial breakthrough in the primaries, but he has recently been sidelined, with more experienced political operatives like Paul Manafort being given more influence, who will now lead the campaign. Lewandowski courted controversy earlier this year over a March run-in with a female reporter at a Trump rally. She accused him of roughly grabbing her, leaving bruises, but he denied that account. Eventually the prosecutors opted to drop all charges. According to New York magazine, Trump’s adult children, Eric, Donald Jr and Ivanka, pushed for Lewandowski’s ouster, saying that he was not up to the job in the run-up to November 8. “I have no regrets,” Lewandowski told CNN. “I’m so thankful for this chance and I know that what I will do moving forward is share my advice… with Mr Trump and the team if they want it,” he said. The Trump campaign is “deeply troubled,” the political analyst and head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia Larry Sabato said. “This is a campaign that is underfunded, that isn’t properly organized. The convention itself is questionable in terms of what it’s going to produce. The Clinton campaign is simply light years ahead of the Trump campaign,” Sabato added. Clinton, who has far better funding thanks to supporters and big donors, launched a media blitz of ads last week, attacking Trump in eight key states, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. The ads will run for six weeks, until the party conventions – the Republicans meet from July 18-21 in Cleveland, and the Democrats convene in Philadelphia from July 25-28. Campaign volunteers for the 68-year-old former secretary of state, who is seeking to be America’s first female president, will go door-to-door next weekend to get out the vote. Such ground work takes time to organize, but Trump’s campaign is planning to outsource it to the Republican Party, a task it normally does not perform. After sewing up the Republican presidential nomination in early May, Trump had closed the gap with Clinton in the polls. But since then, Clinton has dispatched rival Bernie Sanders and found her rhythm on the trail in blasting Trump. She now has a nearly six-point lead over the billionaire, according to an average of opinion polls by specialist website Real Clear Politics.