Trump Enters Politics
When Donald Trump announced his presidential run on June 16, 2015, he entered an unusually large field of eleven major Republican candidates seeking the White House. By the end of July, that field would expand to an unprecedented seventeen major Republican candidates, a hodgepodge that included nine current or former governors, senators, a retired neurosurgeon, and the former CEO of Hewlett Packard.11, 12
Polls early on in the contest showed Trump with an immediate edge over most of the candidates, with a June 26–28, 2015 CNN/ORC national poll showing him polling at 12 percent among Republicans, second after former Florida governor Jeb Bush at 19 percent.13 By July 22–25, 2015, a CNN/ORC poll showed the New York businessman topping the polls at 19 percent, with Bush trailing at 15 percent.14 Always outlandish, his brash style and ability to “tell it like it is” attracted crowds of admirers. He was an instant success among the conservative fringe and had the ability to bring that fringe into the mainstream.
The hallmark of his campaign was using hyperbole and personal insults with just a touch of Orwellian double speak. For example, he would make contradictory statements, on one hand praising veterans but insulting John McCain for being shot down and spending years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. On July 18, 2015 Trump threw out an offhand remark about McCain. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”15 When pressured he would claim he never said any such thing and allow the next outrageous statement to wash over the last one.
Despite his high poll numbers, most of the media and electorate did not initially take his campaign seriously. The Huffington Post went as far as to announce in July 2015 it would run all Trump-related stories in the Entertainment section. “Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow,” the announcement read. “We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.”16
Even the renowned statistician Nate Silver—founder of the polling analysis website FiveThirtyEight who had a near-perfect track record of correctly predicting the winners of the presidential contests in each of the fifty states during the 2008 and 2012 elections—couldn’t fathom Trump’s rise.17 In November of 2015, with the Republican field narrowed down to twelve candidates, Trump topped the polls. Silver put Trump’s chances of winning the Republican nomination below 20 percent. Silver wrote, “For my money, that adds up to Trump’s chances being higher than 0 but (considerably) less than 20 percent.”18
As Christmas approached it looked increasingly probable that Trump would not lose his lead. It was at this time that Trump received a peculiar endorsement. Out of the blue, Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, made a series of comments about the U.S. election that seemed to endorse Trump. Putin said of Trump in a press conference “He is a bright and talented person without any doubt. He is the absolute leader of the presidential race…”19 Putin’s endorsement was a surprise to most but not to those who had been noticing the penchant Trump had towards the Russian autocrat and his glowing admiration of other dictators such as Kim Il-Sung and Muammar Gaddafi.
Trump continued to top each poll as rivals began to fall. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—once considered to be a shoo-in for the GOP nomination—continued to slip before dropping out after his February loss in the South Carolina primary. In the months leading up to Trump’s nomination, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina each at different times found themselves in second place to Trump, but none could catch up to his lead, according to various CNN/ORC polls.20
By spring the race to become the Republican presidential nominee had narrowed down to three candidates. On May 3, Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee when Senator Ted Cruz dropped out of the race after losing the Indiana primary. Ohio Governor John Kasich suspended his campaign the next day.21 The field was vanquished and against all expectations, Donald Trump officially became the party’s nominee at the Republican National Convention in June.22
Between August 2015 and March 2016, the Republicans held a total of twelve presidential primary debates. The Democrats held nine.23 Trump certainly made splashes in the first Republican primary debate in August 2015, receiving both cheers and boos from the crowd at the Quicken Loans arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
When a moderator asked the ten Republican candidates on stage if anyone was unwilling to pledge their support to the eventual nominee, Trump was the only candidate to raise his hand. Receiving boos from the audience, Trump said, “I can totally make the pledge if I’m the nominee. I will pledge I will not run as an independent. I am discussing it with everybody. But I’m talking about a lot of leverage. We want to win and we will win. But I want to win as the Republican. I want to run as the Republican nominee.”24
Trump also gained a reputation for his bluntness and constant criticism of political correctness. “I think the big problem this country has—is being politically correct,” he said during the Fox debate, receiving cheers from the crowd and highlighting a theme he would exploit throughout his campaign. “And I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either.”25
Trump electrified a segment of the conservative electorate. He fired them up at unprecedented levels and relished the electricity in the air when the rallies had unusually high number of protesters and descended into violent altercations. Trump was repeatedly criticized for encouraging violence. Kevin Cirilli wrote for Bloomberg:
Trump frequently chides protesters who seek to disrupt his rallies by shouting for authorities to “get ‘em out” before sometimes adding “run home to mommy.” In fact, even before the candidate begins speaking, a tongue-in-cheek audio-recording plays before each rally instructing attendees to “not hurt the protester,” but to instead chant “Trump, Trump, Trump” and point to those seeking to disrupt the proceedings so as to notify authorities of their location.26
The violence wasn’t limited to those in the crowd. His campaign staff mimicked the aggressive stance of the candidate. Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was accused of forcibly grabbing conservative Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields hard enough to leave a bruise at a campaign rally in Florida. Lewandowski was charged with misdemeanor battery, charges that were ultimately dropped. But it was Trump’s response to the incident that worried some. Vox explains:
In fact, Trump supported Lewandowski since the accusations first surfaced. First he denied it ever happened. Then he denied the video footage existed. Then he said the video footage showed nothing. And then argued that Fields prompted the whole thing by first grabbing Trump while holding a pen (which Trump says Secret Service could have easily mistaken for a tiny bomb).27
The entire demeanor of the campaign was called into question. Trump chief strategist, Paul Manafort, addressed these concerns at an April closed-door meeting of the Republican National Committee. Ashley Parker writes in The New York Times: