WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Saturday closed out a tumultuous week, during which he installed a new team to lead his campaign and his chief strategist resigned. But Trump allies say the businessman and his new campaign chiefs are now focused and ready to direct attacks at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"This has been one of the best weeks the campaign has had," said Sean Spicer, chief strategist at the Republican National Committee.

The spotlight for the week was mostly off the Clinton team, which campaigned heavily in battleground states. Clinton's campaign website showed that the candidate was to appear at a fundraiser in Provincetown, Mass., on Saturday night.

This week, the Clinton campaign plans to hold events in Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio.

Trump's campaign made strides Saturday in efforts to refocus on courting voters, sources say. The Trump team met in New York with a newly convened Hispanic advisory board. Trump has made criticism of immigrants a centerpiece of his campaign.

The Republican National Committee also was represented at the meeting that was held in the 25th-floor boardroom of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan.

"The RNC joins the Trump campaign in recognizing the diverse group of Hispanic leaders who are generously giving of their time and talent to be a part of the National Hispanic Advisory Council for Trump," RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. Republicans will "compete for every vote in every community," he said.

Only in the past week did Trump place his first round of general election advertising -- nearly $5 million for TV commercials in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

By contrast, Clinton's campaign has spent more than $75 million on ads in the weeks since she effectively locked up the nomination in early June, according to Kantar Media's political ad tracker.

Trump is trailing Clinton in preference polls conducted in nearly every battleground state. Now, out of time to build a campaign that can match Clinton's, the team in Trump Tower will focus on a broad messaging effort to capture the attention of voters and try to highlight Clinton's shortcomings, Trump allies said.

"This new team will be very, very aggressive. They understand the nature of taking on the left," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally. "They will be on the attack."

That team includes Stephen Bannon, a conservative media executive with no presidential campaign experience, and pollster Kellyanne Conway, who has known Trump for years.

Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort resigned Friday amid scrutiny of his past work for Ukraine's former pro-Russian political leaders.

Bannon and Conway will have money to work with. In July, Trump raised more than $80 million for his campaign and allied Republican Party groups, his campaign has said. That's shy of the $90 million that Clinton's aides said their nominee collected in July for her campaign and fellow Democratic committees.

The goal for the Trump campaign's leaders is not to tame the candidate's passion, according to Trump's allies, but to refocus his attacks on Clinton. The hope is that Trump can avoid missteps that have defined his campaign since the end of the party conventions, including a public feud with an American Muslim family whose son was killed while serving in the military in Iraq.

"Unfortunately, it took them two months to figure out that Donald Trump is Donald Trump," former Trump adviser Barry Bennett said of Manafort and his team. "He's the bulldozer candidate. What you need to do is aim him at an immovable object, not try to change him."

That approach was in evidence Friday and Saturday.

At a Saturday rally in the battleground state of Virginia, Trump called on the Republican Party to boost its traditionally lagging efforts in winning over black voters. He said the "GOP has to do better" and wants to do better in its outreach to black voters. Clinton has aggressively pursued those voters throughout her campaign.

Later Saturday, Trump met with about a dozen officers from the Stafford County, Va., sheriff's office, including Deputy Sheriff Brandon Boyle, 25, who was shot multiple times during a breaking-and-entering case in June. Trump thanked Boyle for his service.

On Friday, Trump visited flood-stricken Louisiana and later gave a measured, but pointed speech at a rally in Michigan. He took on Clinton and her support among blacks, and contended that his rival would rather give jobs to refugees than American citizens. Trump accused Democrats of taking advantage of black voters while failing to offer them new jobs, better schools and a way out of poverty.

"It's time to hold Democratic politicians accountable for what they've done for these communities," he said, adding: "What do you lose by trying something new like Trump?"

In response to Trump's speech, Clinton tweeted: "This is so ignorant it's staggering."

Out of the spotlight

Trump's rough stretch in the weeks after he clinched the GOP nomination allowed time for Clinton to solidify her lead in national preference polls and most surveys in contested states.

Last week, Clinton campaigned in Ohio and Pennsylvania, although her voter-registration efforts and policy pitches went largely unnoticed as the spotlight turned to Trump and the shake-up of his campaign staff.

Trump's staff shuffling also overshadowed fresh stories about Clinton's use of a private email account and server while she was secretary of state. On Tuesday, the FBI delivered to Congress an overview of its investigation, along with summaries of more than a dozen interviews with senior Clinton staff members and other current and former State Department officials, according to an email from a senior aide to U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that was sent to congressional offices.

Republicans have complained that the materials were turned over in such a way that assessing them is difficult, while Democrats have said the emails should not have been given to legislators.

The Clinton campaign also endured fresh criticism about the Clinton Foundation, after it announced at the end of the week that it would bar donations from corporate and foreign officials if Clinton is elected.

But those stories were largely overshadowed by Trump's campaign shake-up, analysts said.

"Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity," said Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster who worked for the campaign of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

Clinton in the meantime courted journalists in the communities she visited, pushing tailored policy messages, such as her plans to respond to the Zika virus in Florida.

Clinton supporters have hit Trump on issues such as his refusal to release his tax returns, and Clinton had an opinion piece on water quality last week in Florida's Treasure Coast Newspapers.

After an appearance in Ohio on Wednesday, the top headline the next day in The Plain Dealer in Cleveland read, "Clinton Tears Trump Plan to Cut Estate Tax," while The New York Times' main campaign story focused on the tumult in the Trump campaign.

"If the Republicans are spending their time attacking and fighting each other, it gives you a little bit more liberty to go out there and articulate your message. They're not necessarily offering a counter-argument," said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who worked in Bill Clinton's White House. "It gives you more real estate in a more uncluttered way to break through."

Republican pollster Greg Strimple said that's not just spin. He said the "overarching national message of the [Clinton] campaign is not one that can unify the country, so I would focus on doing small events that have local flavor."

"It also keeps her profile lower," he said, "which allows the circular firing squad of the Trump campaign to continue."

On Friday, Clinton gained further support from her former Democratic primary campaign rival. Bernie Sanders said he plans to return to the campaign trail after Labor Day with an eye toward energizing working-class and young voters to support Clinton.

"I look forward to it," the senator from Vermont said in an interview. "I feel very strongly that Donald Trump would be a disaster for the country. I want to do everything I can to see that Secretary Clinton wins."

Information for this article was contributed by Steve Peoples, Julie Bykowicz, Jonathan Lemire, Ken Thomas, Catherine Lucey, Jill Colvin and Lisa Lerer of The Associated Press; by John Wagner, Matt Zapotosky and Robert O'Harrow Jr. of The Washington Post; and by Kevin Cirilli of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 08/21/2016