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Every few decades, there is a controversial personality that seeks the White House outside of the confines of conventional politics. In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt sought the presidency on the Progressive Party ticket, splitting the Republican vote and enabling Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In 1948, Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace came close to preventing incumbent Harry Truman from winning the presidency as they sought the votes of Southern segregationists and progressive Democrats, respectively. In 1968, Alabama Governor George Wallace ran on a states’ rights and “law and order” platform that carried five states and nearly fourteen percent of the national vote. In 1992 and 1996, billionaire Ross Perot tapped into American frustrations over the economy to capture sizable percentages of the popular vote and arguably help Democrat Bill Clinton win those elections. And in 2000, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader cost Democratic candidate Al Gore the presidency by taking away crucial votes in Florida.
Unlike these others campaigns, which were third party runs, billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy is taking place within the Republican Party. Railing against American jobs moving abroad, big financial institutions, immigration, and “political correctness,” Trump has surged in the polls in recent months and his support is showing few signs of faltering. His rise has befuddled political observers, who initially thought his popularity would be fleeting and that he did not have a significant chance of winning the Republican nomination. Although critics bashed Trump’s recent performance in the Republican presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio, he has a devoted group of followers and some postulate that if Trump does not win the GOP presidential nomination that he might bolt and run as a third party candidate, something that would likely throw the election into the hands of the Democratic nominee.
This topic brief will discuss Trump’s rise in the polls and his positions, analyze his performance in the August 6 Republican debate, and then discuss some of the pitfalls that his candidacy could encounter in the coming months.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
The Rise of Donald Trump
First, it has to be said that Trump is not unfamiliar with presidential campaigns. As early as the late 1980s, he was showing some signs of getting involved in politics, telling news outlets near the beginning of the George H.W. Bush presidency that the country needed “major surgery” and that he felt he could do the job more effectively. In 2000, Trump flirted with the idea of mounting a third party candidacy, something that might have been motivated by the support shown for Ross Perot’s presidential runs in 1992 and 1996 and the victory of Reform Party candidate Jesse Ventura in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election. However, after briefly announcing that he would seek the Reform Party nomination in the fall of 1999, he decided to withdraw his name in February 2000. In recent years, Trump thought of running for the New York governorship, but as U.S. News and World Report writes on August 7, he said he would only do so if the Republican Party nominated him by acclimation and refused to hold a primary. When the New York Republican Party refused, Trump decided not to seek the office.
Trump began his current presidential candidacy with an announcement at Trump Tower in New York City on June 16, 2015. Using the slogan “Make America Great Again!,” Trump gave a forty-five minute campaign announcement that pledged to focus on growing the economy, protect existing entitlement programs such as Social Security, and clamp down on illegal immigration, among other issues. One of the advantages of a Trump bid is that he can tap into his personal wealth and, as a result, he does not have to court major Republican donors. This can make Trump a little more cavalier in his statements and policy positions. The Internet has also been a big help for Trump’s candidacy thus far, with Trump using Twitter to attack media outlets and personalities and others that he claims are speaking for the political establishment. According to his campaign website, Trump claims to support free markets, strong family values, a pro-life position on abortion, help for veterans and their families, and a robust national defense.
Trump’s willingness to make controversial statements is what has set him apart from other candidates in the Republican field. For example, at his opening campaign announcement, Trump claimed that Mexico was sending its criminals and drugs over the border, only tempering his rhetoric by saying that “some [immigrants]…are good people.” The comment prompted outrage from Latino activists, who claimed that Trump was painting all Latino immigrants with the broad brush of criminal mischief. Trump also lost his television deal with NBC, which aired episodes of Trump’s reality show The Apprentice. Rather than apologize for the comments, Trump doubled down on them and attacked his critics, pointing out that NBC News was dropping him, but decided to retain newscaster Brian Williams who was found to have falsified several reporting details last year. Indeed, Trump’s appeal to elements of the Republican base is his willingness to not cave into those who demand that he temper his rhetoric. Bloomberg writes on August 7 that Trump is making a risky bet that being politically incorrect can be a campaign virtue. Academic studies on “political correctness,” defined roughly as one’s willingness to temper rhetoric that can offend certain segments of the population based on sex, race, or other factors, find that it can be a double-edged sword for candidates. On the one hand, a candidate that challenges politically correct assumptions can win votes, but when they give bombastic statements that are likely to offend – such as Trump’s comments on immigration – they also lose votes. Bloomberg argues that this explains why some “extreme” parties in Europe that challenge the political establishment such as the True Finns in Finland or Jobbik in Hungary have never managed to win a governing majority.
After his controversial comments on immigration, political observers were quick to write off Trump’s candidacy. Surely, they argued, Republican voters would try to avoid any association with Trump because they want to broaden the party’s appeal to Latino voters, a segment of the population that the party has struggled to attract since George W. Bush’s presidency. Trump seemed to err even more when he blasted Arizona Senator John McCain in early July, saying at a political event in Ames, Iowa that McCain was “not a war hero” since he was captured. Although Trump later backed off some of this statement by saying that prisoners of war could still be heroes, he redirected his criticism of McCain by saying that he had not been a sufficient champion of securing the nation’s borders or making sure that veterans received proper healthcare. The national media asked other Republican candidates how they felt about Trump’s comments about McCain and two candidates – former New York Governor George Pataki and former Texas Governor Rick Perry – called for Trump to withdraw from the race. However, Trump refused to do so and his “shoot from the hip” style seemed to actually attract more support, much of which seems to come from the seven-year-old Tea Party movement that emerged after the Bush presidency. Going into the August 6 presidential debate in Cleveland, Trump had a commanding lead over the other Republican presidential contenders with a CBS News poll giving him an eleven point lead over former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (24-13%), who is deemed as the “establishment” candidate in the race. Befuddled observers have not really known what to make of Trump’s support, with some dismissing it as the dying political call of the “angry white man,” while others point to how he is getting far more media attention than any other presidential contender, including Democratic candidates such as Hillary Clinton. The National Journal writes on August 6 that Trump’s support can be explained by “an angry, anxious America.” It notes that two-thirds of Americans tell pollsters that the country is on the “wrong track” and seventy-five percent say that life for the next generation will be worse than that of their parents. Trust in government institutions is at an all-time low and support for both major political parties is below 40%. Disappointing turnout levels in the 2014 midterm elections speaks to this disengagement and Trump is positioning himself as a champion for America’s frustrated masses, some of whom probably exist outside of the Republican Party.
The August 6 Republican Debate
Arguably, no one had as much riding on the August 6 Republican presidential debate than Trump since he was an untested political commodity. Speaking in Scotland prior to the debate, Trump tried to play down his chances, arguing that he was not used to arguing with other politicians. As the leading candidate in the polls, Trump was placed at the center of the stage, flanked by Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Pundits wondered how Trump would behave during the debate and whether he would temper his demeanor or rhetoric and how other candidates would respond to him.
It only took a few moments for Trump to anger some of the Cleveland audience by raising his hand when moderator Brett Baier asked if any of the candidates would not pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee and promise to avoid running as an independent if they did not win the nomination. Of all the candidates on the stage, Trump was the only one to take this position, which drew several noticeable jeers from the crowd. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky immediately challenged Trump, saying that his unwillingness to promise to support the eventual winner showed that he was only running for the sake of his own ego.
Aside from his refusal to pledge to support a Republican nominee if he failed to win the primary, Trump made several other noticeable gaffes, errors that would likely doom the hopes of any other presidential candidate. Politico writes on August 7 that Trump claimed that the only reason candidates were talking about illegal immigration was because of him, ignoring the fact that immigration reform has played a role in the last several Republican presidential primaries. He also failed to provide specific evidence to back up his claim that Mexico was intentionally sending criminals over the border. More damagingly, Trump doubled down on how he has made some insulting comments to women in the past, as moderator and Fox News personality Megyn Kelly noted how Trump has had a history of calling women “slobs,” “dogs,” and “fat pigs.” His answer that he was only speaking about Rosie O’Donnell got a cheer from the crowd (as O’Donnell is a very vocal advocate for very liberal Democratic positions), but that could also prove embarrassing for the party that saw Mitt Romney lose female support in 2012 when Democrats argued he was waging a “war on women.” Slate writes on August 6 that Trump spent the majority of the debate insulting a host of people, saying that American politicians were “stupid,” that moderator Chris Wallace was “living in a world of make-believe,” that Senator Paul was “hard of hearing,” that banks were “total killers,” that the last few months of former President George W. Bush’s tenure of office were a “catastrophe,” and that the United States “could not do anything right.” It should also be noted, as Politico does on August 7, that Trump bragged about using the country’s laws to his advantage when he had to declare bankruptcy on some of his businesses in the past. This could prove damaging in a general election if a Democrat attempts to charge that Trump shielded himself from his poor business decisions at the expense of investors and others that bore the financial brunt of ill-timed choices.
While Trump brought a bazooka of heated rhetoric to the debate this also proved to be part of his undoing as he focused too much on himself and not enough on specific policy solutions. According to The Atlantic on August 7, this has been a major problem for Trump’s campaign thus far as he has been big on rhetoric but little on specifics. In fact, one visiting Trump’s campaign website will find no grand policy proposals. It is hard to see how Trump will be able to fare well in future debates if those become bogged down in technocratic policy issues. For example, when discussing taxes, how much would Trump seek to cut or raise them? Which groups would be most affected and how? Without sufficient detail, it is difficult to see how Trump can present himself as a credible candidate as candidates have to have to present some specific policy programs if they want to win the White House. As The Economist on August 7 put it, “Trump was exposed as an unelectable boor and narcissist.”
Trump’s presence in the August 6 debate attracted a record television audience, with The Wall Street Journal reporting on August 7 that twenty-four million Americans tuned into the debate, making it the most-watched televised primary debate of all-time. The telecast was also the highest rating ever achieved by Fox News. By comparison, the first Republican debate of the 2012 election cycle garnered 7.6 million viewers. The Wall Street Journal further explains that Trump received the most Twitter mentions of any other candidate, with 836,338 tweets mentioning him, but more tweets were negative than positive. Commentary Magazine points out on August 7 that a Gravis Marketing poll following the debate showed that 30% of viewers thought Trump lost the debate. Only Senator Paul did worse, as 34% of Americans thought he clearly lost. 19% of viewers thought Trump did win the debate, but 45% said that they thought less of him afterward versus 36% who came away with a better impression of him as a presidential contender. Trump also did himself few favors after the debate, blasting the three Fox News moderators afterwards for giving him more difficult questions than the other candidates and The New York Times noted on August 7 that he retweeted followers that blasted Megyn Kelly as a “bimbo” and claimed that she “bombed” as a moderator.
Still, Trump did come away with some positives. CNN writes on August 7 that very few of the Republican contenders decided to challenge Trump, with Rand Paul being the vocal in taking him on. Some observers said that this was due to some contenders such as Jeb Bush not wanting to mix it up with Trump since that would bring them down to his level. However, it was jarring to see Trump bash Bush’s brother and for him to do nothing in response. Similarly, Bush did little to challenge Trump’s comments on immigration despite the fact that they were placed side-by-side on the stage. Another victory for Trump is that he remained a focal part of the conversation. Politico writes in a separate article on August 7 that Trump got more airtime than any other candidate. As long as Trump dominates the national political discussion he may be able to retain his level of support as it makes it difficult for other contenders to establish a footing. This is especially true of moderates that could emerge as strong contenders such as Ohio Governor John Kasich that are still unknown to many voters.
Potential Pitfalls for a Trump Candidacy
With the Iowa caucuses scheduled for February 1 there are still several more months for Trump’s candidacy to fizzle or turn the GOP primary into an even bigger circus. One of the most immediate problems that Trump faces are accusations that he is a plant by the Clintons and that he is not a “real” Republican. Just prior to last week’s debate, reports surfaced that Trump talked with former President Bill Clinton before deciding to join the Republican contest. Conspiracy theorists allege that Trump is a Clinton plant that is designed to disrupt the GOP primary and then potentially seek the presidency as an independent, thereby allowing Hillary Clinton to win in a three-way contest when the Republican vote fractures. National Review writes on August 7 that Trump supported single-payer healthcare in the past and he actually praised the healthcare systems of Canada and Scotland in the August 6 presidential debate. The Republican Party has traditionally blasted the concept of single-payer healthcare and although Trump says that he no longer supports this issue, it does weaken his ideological purity in the eyes of conservative voters. There are also questions about where Trump stands on tax policy. ABC News writes on August 6 that in 1999 Trump floated the idea of imposing a one-time tax of 14.25% on Americans that were worth more than $10 million. This tax would be used to pay off the national debt, which at the time stood at $5.7 trillion. Trump argued that his plan would be patriotic, as the wealthy would be asked to give a one-time payment for the good of the country (Trump himself would have had to pay $700 million under this plan), and he touted it as an engine for economic growth since the country would not have any more foreign debt and could thereby reduce income taxes on the other 99% of the population. When asked in 2011 about this plan, Trump said it was no longer workable due to the country’s economic situation, but a candidate that has a history of supporting significant tax hikes is bound to raise the ire of anti-tax elements of the Republican base. Furthermore, The UK Telegraph writes on August 7 that Trump stood against the Iraq War, but the problem with this is that he did so in July 2004, more than a year after the war began. The Iraq War is a touchy issue in the Republican Party, with many thinking it was a mistake, but unwilling to cast the full blame on the Bush administration for the lack of finding weapons of mass destruction there. Trump has cast his stance on the Iraq War as evidence of his foreign policy vision, but the problem is that he weighed in after it was apparent that there were already some problems with the U.S. occupation. If Republicans continue to press Trump about his past policy stances they may make up some ground, but thus far very few Republican candidates have done so.
Another issue that can harm Trump are accusations of sexism. This is what prompted Megyn Kelly’s questions early in the August 6 GOP debate. Politico explains that Trump reportedly called a female lawyer “disgusting” when she had to leave a meeting to pump breast milk for her baby and his attorney had to apologize for comments about how one could not rape their spouse in response to an article where Trump’s former wife Ivana Trump once accused him of rape (she has since said that such an incident did not occur). The New York Times points out that Trump once mocked Cher for having plastic surgery as well. Trump’s problems with women, exacerbated by his recent scuffle with Kelly following the debate, may give some GOP voters pause. With their nominee expected to face off with Hillary Clinton, who will seek to become America’s first female president, the GOP can ill afford to have a candidate that cannot attract female support, something that Clinton is betting on to win battleground states. The New York Times notes that a Quinnipiac poll last month found that 37% of female Republican voters said that they would not support Trump, so this is already a warning sign for his campaign. If Trump thinks he can win the presidency without some support from women and Latinos (many of whom were repelled by his immigration comments) then he could be deemed certifiably insane.
Trump also risks alienating elements of the Republican base by his attacks on the media. Republican voters believe that most mainstream media outlets such as NBC, CBS, and ABC have anti-conservative agendas, so they have applauded Trump’s attacks on them. However, Trump has focused some of his recent ire on Fox News, mostly notably Kelly, who is one of the network’s rising stars. Kelly is very popular with conservative viewers and attacking her may reduce Trump’s support. Additionally, Republican voters are fans of Fox News programming and are not likely to believe Trump’s accusations that the network is part of the same mainstream progressive agenda as its basic cable counterparts. Continuing these attacks could make Trump appear irrational to his supporters who may eventually tire of his act and find another candidate.
Finally, there is the electability problem that may cause GOP voters to shift their support in the weeks before the Iowa caucus. In 2004, Democratic voters appeared set to endorse former Vermont Governor Howard Dean’s progressive vision, but recoiled at the eleventh hour and threw their support behind Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. The National Journal writes on August 7 that there are some similarities between Trump’s campaign and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side. Both candidates are blasting the traditional political establishment and are striking a nerve with their respective bases, although they present very different ideological solutions for what ails America. The National Journal reports that Trump is finding support for being unconventional, but eventually primary voters may realize that while their heart is with Trump they need to find another candidate that can defeat Hillary Clinton. If the Republican Party had been in power for the last eight years this may not be an issue, but the party is seeking to avoid a third consecutive presidential defeat, something that has not happened since 1940. The hunger to regain the White House may prove to be Trump’s undoing as voters realize that his candidacy is toxic and they cannot afford to make him the face of their party in 2016.
Of all the commentary made about Donald Trump’s candidacy thus far, Vox probably provides the best insight back on July 15. It notes that Trump’s platform is not the problem as economic nationalism can curry favor with an electorate that is angry about jobs going overseas, opposes free trade agreements, and thinks that there is too much immigration into the country. However, it notes that he is “probably too much of a clown to capitalize on the potential appeal of his agenda.” Therefore, what is wrong about Trump’s campaign may not be the ideas it stands for but instead the candidate that is presenting them. In the past, candidates that espouse controversial views have sometimes had their platforms adopted by major parties. For example, the Populist Party’s call in 1892 for a graduated income tax, the direct election of senators, and the eight-hour workday was eventually endorsed by one or both major political parties. Thus, the country may be ready for some of Donald Trump’s ideas, but may not be ready for him and this is the challenge he will face as the 2016 presidential campaign continues to unfold.