The Plot to Hack America

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