DES MOINES, Iowa -- Donald Trump has slowly begun to add paid staff members in a handful of swing states, including in Wisconsin and Iowa. But campaign officials say the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee has little desire to have the kind of wide-ranging national operation that past White House campaigns have created.

Trump plans instead to depend on the national Republican Party to lead state-based efforts on his behalf, while Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has for months had a large staff dedicated specifically to her campaign in general election battlegrounds.

"It would be disingenuous and wrongheaded to take a playbook that has been used over and over again," said Trump senior aide Karen Giorno, who's in charge of an 11-state Southeastern bloc including battlegrounds Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. "We are creating the playbook."

The approach reflects Trump's disdain for traditional Republican campaign practices and inclination to implement businesslike decision-making.

If Trump is lagging Clinton badly in polls come early fall, there is nothing to stop the Republican National Committee from focusing instead on saving Republican control of the Senate or other competitive contests on the ballot this November. Beth Myers, who managed 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign, said White House candidates have unique needs that a broader-brush approach cannot always meet.

"The presidential campaign is going to want to have someone on the ground whose interest is 100 percent Donald J. Trump," said Myers, who is not involved in the 2016 Trump or RNC efforts. "Most campaigns by June would have that person in place in key states."

Trump is largely outsourcing what's typically called a campaign's ground game, which includes the labor-intensive jobs of identifying and contacting potential supporters. Ed Brookover, recently tapped to serve as Trump's liaison to the RNC, said the campaign is making progress on adding its own staff in key states.

The campaign estimates it currently has about 30 paid staff members on the ground across the country.

"There are some holes," Brookover said. "There are fewer holes than there were."

Specifically, Trump has added at least one paid staff member in both Wisconsin and Iowa in recent days, targeting two Midwestern states where he hopes to reverse Democrats' winning streaks in the November general election. The campaign also has added for the first time a human resources professional to assist with hiring.

Trump's plan to rely on his party's establishment comes as Republican leaders have lashed out at his message.

GOP leaders including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell this week condemned Trump's renewed call, as part of his anti-terrorism strategy, to impose a temporary ban on allowing foreign Muslims to enter the country. Republican officials reacted with similar disdain to Trump's comments in the wake of the Orlando, Fla., massacre, when he insinuated that President Barack Obama may sympathize with terrorists.

A week earlier, some Republicans decried as racially discriminatory Trump's claim that a judge's Hispanic heritage disqualified him from presiding over a court case involving the defunct Trump University.

The RNC recently hired Trump's former political director, Rick Wiley, weeks after he was fired by the campaign. The move took some of Trump's senior team by surprise, despite the RNC's insistence that it had the campaign's blessing.

Committee Chairman Reince Priebus rejected reports of rising tensions between the RNC and Trump's campaign.

"Flying to Dallas now with @realDonaldTrump...Reports of discord are pure fiction. Great events lined up all over Texas. Rs will win in Nov!" Priebus tweeted this week.

Amid the uproar, Trump is forging ahead with his unconventional approach to building a presidential campaign.

He has largely avoided campaigning in battleground states since clinching enough delegates for his party's nomination, spending valuable time instead in reliably Republican states such as Georgia and Texas, and reliably Democratic California. He also has been slow to embrace a plan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to fund both his campaign and the RNC's ground game.

In many states, Trump has no paid senior general election staff in place. In a handful of others, he has no more than one staff member.

At the same time, the RNC has 483 paid staff members in the field, in states across the country, who are "dedicated to beating Hillary Clinton," said RNC spokesman Lindsay Walters. Florida has the largest staff, with almost 60 members. They're also in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

They're not necessarily focused wholly on Trump, however.

"We're working with all the different candidates running for election," Walters said.

By contrast, Clinton began placing state-level directors in April, and she has paid campaign staff members in states including Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Bush steps in

Coming out of the woodwork for Republicans this election is former President George W. Bush.

After eight years of largely abstaining from politics, Bush is throwing himself into an effort to save his party's most vulnerable senators up for re-election, while avoiding campaigning for Trump.

In the weeks since Trump emerged as the party's presumptive nominee, Bush has hosted fundraisers for two Republican senators and has made plans to help three more. Among them are Sens. John McCain of Arizona, who was one of Trump's earliest targets of derision, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who has struggled to respond to Trump's rhetoric.

Friends say the former president is deeply bothered by Trump's campaign message, especially his remarks about Muslims and immigrants.

At an event with McCain, Bush stressed the importance of preserving the Republican-held Senate as a "check and balance" on the White House, suggesting that such a check was needed whether the next president is Trump or Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Bush announced through a spokesman last month that he would not support Trump's candidacy and would not attend the Republican convention in Cleveland next month. His father, former President George H.W. Bush, and his brother Jeb Bush, who was defeated and ridiculed by Trump in the primary, are also staying away.

Trump has publicly repudiated George W. Bush's legacy, denouncing the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a foreign policy disaster, blaming Bush for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and painting his presidency as a failure.

But Bush is motivated to try to shore up Republican control of the Senate, which he is said to view as a force for stability at a chaotic time in politics, and to help those who reflect his more inclusive brand of conservatism.

"President Bush believes that it's critical to keep the Senate in Republican hands," said Freddy Ford, Bush's spokesman. "He is actively helping some senators in tight races who are strong leaders and share timeless conservative values."

Next week, the former president will appear at a fundraiser for Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri. Similar events are being planned for Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rob Portman of Ohio.

"I'm pleased he is coming," Blunt said in a brief interview this week on Capitol Hill. He added: "He hasn't given a political speech since he left, so I am interested to hear what he has to say. In Missouri he is still very popular, as he is more and more all over the country."

Johnson said he was looking forward to his reception with Bush, in part because he has never had a conversation with the former president, underscoring how much Bush has withdrawn from politics.

"All the Bushes are people of integrity," said Johnson, who is locked in a close race with former Sen. Russ Feingold.

On Thursday night, Trump said he was fine with Bush's activities. "I like that he's helping certain Republicans," Trump said, adding that Bush's brother "had a great chance to beat me" and did not.

Bush declines to praise or criticize either Trump or Clinton in public settings. "My candidate lost," he has said, referring to Jeb Bush.

Ryan said Republican lawmakers should follow their conscience in deciding whether to support Trump.

The Wisconsin Republican told NBC's Meet the Press that "the last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that's contrary to their conscience. Of course I wouldn't do that."

Ryan, who has endorsed Trump, said he understands he is in a "very strange situation" to be supporting the New York businessman while not urging his fellow lawmakers to follow suit. But he said Trump is "a very unique nominee."

Ryan is the highest-elected Republican official and the chairman of the Republican convention next month.

As speaker of the House, Ryan said, he feels a responsibility not to lead "some chasm in the middle of our party" that would hurt the GOP's chances to win the White House.

Ryan was interviewed Thursday for the Sunday talk show. An excerpt was released Friday.

Ryan's comments came as Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., a 30-year House veteran and committee chairman, said he will not endorse Trump for president. Maryland's Republican Gov. Larry Hogan said he will not vote for him, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a former GOP candidate for president, said he's still not ready to endorse Trump.

Ryan said he has no plans to rescind his endorsement of Trump, despite his differences with him.

"I don't have a plan to do that," he said Thursday, calling differences among party leaders "just the way things work."

Information for this article was contributed by Thomas Beaumont, Steve Peoples, Jill Colvin, Jonathan Lemire, Julie Bykowicz, Kathleen Ronayne and Matthew Daly of The Associated Press and by Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin and Jennifer Steinhauer of The New York Times.

A Section on 06/18/2016