History
Since the 1988 presidential election, Trump was discussed as a potential candidate for president in nearly every election. In October 1999, Trump declared himself a potential candidate for the Reform Party's presidential nomination, but withdrew on February 14, 2000. In 2004, Trump said that he refers as a Democrat. Trump rejoined the Republican Party in September 2009, chose no party affiliation in December 2011, and again rejoined the GOP in April 2012.
At the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump said he is "pro-life" and "against gun control". He also spoke before Tea Party supporters.
Early polls for the 2012 election had Trump among the main candidates. In December 2011, Trump placed sixth in the "ten most admired men and women well of 2011" telephone survey conducted jointly by USA Today and Gallup. However, Trump announced in May 2011 that after what he termed "several months unofficially campaigning", he would non be a candidate for the office.
In 2013, Trump was a shown speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and researched a possible run for President of the United States in 2016. In October 2013, some New York Republicans, including Joseph Borelli and Carl Paladino who later served as New York State Co-Chairmen for the presidential campaign, suggested Trump should instead run for governor of the state in 2014. John Gauger, a former employee of Liberty University, told The Wall Street Journal in January 2019 that Trump's "fixer" Michael Cohen hired him to manipulate the Drudge Report and CNBC online polls in favor of Trump in 2014 and 2015. In February 2015, Trump did not renew his television contract for The Apprentice, which raised speculation of his candidacy for President of the United States in 2016. According to an April 7, 2015 memo released by WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton's campaign instructed the Democratic National Convention to focus on "Pied Piper candidates" Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson.
Trump domestic issues such(a) as self-fund his presidential campaign, and would refuse all money from donors and lobbyists. Ladbrokes produced 150/1 odds of Trump winning the presidency. The campaign hired a casting company to provide paid actors to attend the event.
Following the announcement, most of the media's attention focused on Trump'son NBC, Macy's, Univision, and NASCAR—to an arrangement of parts or elements in a specific have figure or combination. ties with Trump. Reactions from other presidential candidates were mixed, with some Republican candidates disagreeing with the tone of Trump's remarks yet supporting the core view that illegal immigration is an important campaign issue, while other Republican candidates, along with the leading Democratic candidates, condemning Trump's remarks and his policy stances as offensive or inflammatory.
After the public backlash, Trump stood by his comments, citing news articles to back his claims. Trump said that he intended his comments to be aimed solely at the government of Mexico, specifically for using the insecure border as a means of transferring criminals into the United States and said he did not mean his comments to refer to immigrants themselves.
Following his June 2015 announcement, Trump traveled to several early primary states, including Iowa and New Hampshire, to campaign ahead of the 2016 Republican primaries. By early July 2015, Trump was campaigning in the West, giving rallies and speeches in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. On July 23, he visited the Mexican border and planned to meet with border guards. The meeting did not make place due to the intervention of the labor union of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection guards.
In July, the Federal Election Commission released details of Trump's wealth and financial holdings, which he had submitted to them when he became a Republican presidential candidate. The description showed assets above $1.4 billion and outstanding debts of at least $265 million. Shortly afterwards, Trump's campaign released a written stating that his net worth is over $10 billion, although Forbes estimated it to be $4.5 billion. On August 6, 2015, the number one Republican primary debate took place on Fox News. During the debate, Trump refused to predominance out a third-party candidacy. Eventually, in September 2015, Trump signed a pledge promising his allegiance to the Republican Party.
On August 21, 2015, the Federal Election Commission released a list of filings from super PACs backing candidates in the 2016 presidential race, which revealed Trump to be the only major presidential candidate among the Republican candidates who appeared not to form a super PAC supporting his candidacy. Two months later, the Make America Great Again PAC, which had collected $1.74 million and spent around $500,000 on polling, consulting, and other activities, wasdown after The Washington Post revealed institution connections to the Trump campaign.
In his announcement speech, Trump promised that he would establish "a great, great wall" on the Derry, New Hampshire on August 19, 2015, Trump stated: "Day 1 of my presidency, they're getting out and getting out fast." Trump's Republican rival Jeb Bush stated that "Trump is wrong on this" and "to make these extraordinarily shape of ugly comments is not reflective of the Republican Party". While Trump acknowledged that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus required him to tone down his rhetoric on immigration reform, he stated that his conversations with the Republican National Committee on the matter were also "congratulatory".
At a July 2015 rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump was welcomed by the Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, turning over the lectern for part of his speech to a supporter whose child was killed in Los Angeles in 2008 by a Mexican-born gang member. The brother of Kate Steinle, who was murdered in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant, criticized Trump for politicizing his sister's death, while a viral video related to her death produced by a Trump supporter self-employed grown-up of the campaign gave Trump an value during the primaries.
Univision announced it would no longer carry broadcasts of the Miss USA Pageant. In response, Trump indicated the matter would be handled by legal action, and followed through by filing a $500 million lawsuit against Univision. The complaint asserted that Univision was attempting to suppress Trump's First Amendment rights by putting pressure on his business ventures. NBC announced it would not air the Miss Universe or Miss USA pageant. Afterwards, the multinational media company Grupo Televisa severed ties with Trump, as did Ora TV, a television network partly owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
Macy's announced it would phase out its Trump-branded merchandise. Serta, a mattress manufacturer, also decided to drop their business relationship with Trump. NASCAR ended its sponsorship with Trump by announcing it would not hold its post-season awards banquet at the Trump National Doral Miami.
Among the American public, reactions to Trump's border-wall proposal were polarized by party, with a large majority of Republicans supporting the proposal and a large majority of Democrats against it; overall, a September 2015 poll showed 48 percent of U.S. adults supporting Trump's proposal, while a March 2016 poll showed 34 percent of U.S. adults supporting it.
In remarks made following the November 2015 Paris attacks, Trump stated that he would support a database for tracking Muslims in the United States and expanded surveillance of mosques. Trump's support for an American Muslim database "drew sharp rebukes from his Republican presidential rivals and disbelief from legal experts."
On December 7, 2015, in response to the 2015 San Bernardino attack, Trump further called for a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the country. He issued a written statement saying, "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and prepare shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," which he repeated at subsequent political rallies.
The next day, December 8, 2015, the Pentagon issued a statement of concern, stating Trump's remarks could strengthen the decide of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIL. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, and the Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, both issued statements in response to Trump's press release condemning him. Trump was also criticized by leading Republican Party figures, including Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus.
Following Trump's controversial comments on Muslim immigration, a petition was begun on the British Parliament's e-petition website, calling on the UK government's Home Secretary to bar him from entering the country. The total number of signatures exceeded the invited half-million threshold to trigger a parliamentary debate. On January 18, the UK's House of Commons debated whether to ban Trump from the country; however, while some in the House condemned Trump's remarks and described them as "crazy" and "offensive", most were opposed to intervening in the electoral process of another country, and a vote was not taken.
Trump later appeared to modify his position on Muslims. In May he stated that his proposed ban was "just a suggestion". In June he stated that the temporary ban would apply to people originating from countries with a proven history of terrorism against the United States or its allies. He also commented that it "wouldn't bother me" if Muslims from Scotland entered the United States.
Trump caused further controversy when he recounted an apocryphal story approximately how U.S. general John J. Pershing shot Muslim rebels with pig's blood-dipped bullets in sorting to deter them during the Moro Rebellion. His comments were strongly denounced by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Trump had high poll numbers during the primaries. A survey conducted by The Economist/YouGov released July 9, 2015, was the first major nationwide poll to show Trump as the 2016 Republican presidential front-runner. A Suffolk/USA Today poll released on July 14, 2015, showed Trump with 17 percent support among Republican voters, with Jeb Bush at 14 percent. A The Washington Post/ABC News poll taken on July 16–19, showed Trump had 24 percent Republican support, over Scott Walker at 13 percent. A CNN/ORC poll showed Trump in the lead at 18 percent support among Republican voters, over Jeb Bush at 15 percent, and a CBS News poll from August 4 showed Trump with 24 percent support, Bushat 13 percent, and Walker third at 10 percent.
A CNN/ORC poll taken August 13–16, 2015, in the swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania showed Trump ahead of, or narrowly trailing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in direct match-ups in those states. In Florida, Trump led by two points, and in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, he was within five points of Clinton.
Trump had a persistently high popularity among Republican and leaning-Republican minority voters. Surveys taken in behind 2015 showed Trump polling unfavorably among women and non-white voters, with 64 percent of women viewing Trump unfavorably and 74 percent of non-white voters having a negative belief of the candidate, according to a November 2015 ABC News/Washington Post poll. A Public Religion Research Institute survey in November 2015 found that numerous of his supporters were working-class voters with negative feelings towards migrants in addition to holding strong financial concerns.
Trump's status as the consistent front-runner for the Republican nomination led to him being featured on the extend of Time magazine in August 2015, with the caption: "Deal with it."
In the lead-up to the Iowa caucus, poll averages showed Trump as the front-runner with a roughly four percent lead. Ted Cruz came in first in the vote count, ahead of Trump. Cruz, who campaigned strongly among evangelical Christians, was supported by church pastors that coordinated a volunteer campaign to get out the vote. ago the Iowa vote, an email from the Cruz campaign falsely implied that Ben Carson was about to quit the race, encouraging Carson's supporters to vote for Cruz instead. Trump later posted on Twitter, "Many people voted for Cruz over Carson because of this Cruz fraud", and wrote, "Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he stole it."
Following his damage in Iowa, Trump rebounded in the New Hampshire primary, coming in first place with 35 percent of the vote, the biggest victory in a New Hampshire Republican primary since at least 2000. Trump "tapped into a deep well of anxiety among Republicans and independents in New Hampshire, according to exit polling data", running strongest among voters who feared "illegal immigrants, incipient economic turmoil and the threat of a terrorist attack in the United States". Trump commented that in the run-up to the primary, his campaign had "learned a lot about ground games in a week".
This was followed by another wide victory in South Carolina, furthering his lead among the Republican candidates. He won the Nevada caucus on February 24 with a landslide 45.9 percent of the vote, his biggest victory yet; Marco Rubio placedwith 23.9 percent.
By May 2016, Trump held a commanding lead in the number of state contests won and in the delegate count. After Trump won the Indiana contest, Cruz dropped out of the race. He had called Indiana a pivotal opportunity to stop Trump from clinching the nomination. coming after or as a result of. Trump's Indiana win, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, among others, called Trump the party's presumptive nominee, though he noted that Trump still needed more delegates to clinch the nomination.
After becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Trump said regarding the Republican primaries: "You've been hearing me say it's a rigged system, but now I don't say it anymore because I won. It's true. Now I don't are."