WI Trump Runs in 1988 as a Democrat?

Most people know that Donald Trump was rumored to have considered a bid for the Presidency, as a Republican, in 1988. However, he was a Democrat up until 1987, and according to Wikipedia, "After rumors of a presidential run, Trump was invited by Democratic senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas, and Arkansas congressman Beryl Anthony Jr., to host a fundraising dinner for Democratic Congressional candidates and to switch parties. Anthony told The New York Times that "the message Trump has been preaching is a Democratic message." So what if Trump did make the run that year, but as a Democrat and not a Republican?
 
I don't know how Trump was polling in 1988, but what I do know is that Lee Iacocca was polling higher than Bush was. If you combine similar business experience with higher name recognition and being a younger candidate, Trump very well could have beaten Bush.
 
My guess is probably fails, but sets himself up for 2000 to run and beat Gore in the primaries then beat bush in the general. Big change would be democrats moving more populist on economics than otl.
 
my guess on how 2000 would look

genusmap.php


DJT = 351 EV
Bush = 176 EV
 
Trump is going nowhere for either party's nomination in 1988. 1992 is rather more his sort of climate - however that period was a business nadir for Trump which makes a run prohibitive. Ultimately though in 2016 he was unquestionably a national fixture through the Apprentice and his decades of public exposure in a way he isn't even in the nineties and that combined with a highly, uh, receptive Republican primary electorate at that time for his populist politics and persona. Tbh all these threads are sort of a riff on the Teleological Gore Fallacy.
 
1992 is rather more his sort of climate - however that period was a business nadir for Trump which makes a run prohibitive

Part of the Trump legend is that he's (well, in his own mind at least) something of a comeback king- he could sell himself as the guy who had it all, lost it, and made it all back and then some; it's a three-act drama already packaged.
 
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