Trump Has Never Voted In A Republican Primary
8:45 AM 01/22/2016
A search of the New York state voter rolls shows that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has never cast a vote in a Republican presidential primary election in the state in which he has long been a resident.
Trump’s official voting records, obtained by the Daily Mail, show that the 69-year-old billionaire failed to vote in any Republican presidential primary dating back to 1989.
Similarly, there is no evidence showing that Trump bothered to vote in Democratic primaries, presidential or otherwise.
Records show that Trump has voted in a New York political party’s primaries for a candidate at any level on just two occasions.
The real estate tycoon voted in a September 2013 New York City mayoral primary and a September 2010 U.S. Senate special election primary. And that’s it.
The Republican presidential primaries in the state of New York occurred on or around “Super Tuesday” in 2008, 2004, 2000 and 1996. The state has been oracular in Republican politics, having chosen the last six eventual Republican candidates.
Trump has changed his party affiliation at least four times in the last 16 years — an average of once for each presidential election.(RELATED: From Immigration To Abortion, Longtime Democrat Donald Trump Must Reckon With His Rich Progressive History)
In 2009, Trump enthusiastically endorsed then-newly-minted President Barack Obama.
“We have a young, vibrant, smart president who, I think, is going to do a really good job,” the leading candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination said on Fox News.
For years, Trump has also zealously praised Hillary Clinton as “really a very terrific woman.”
“I think she’s a very, very brilliant person, and as a senator in New York, she has done a great job,” he gushed in 2007. “Everybody loves her.”
In 2008, Trump applauded Obama’s selection of Clinton as his secretary of state nominee. “I think Hillary is a great appointment,” he said. (RELATED: Report: Emails At The Highest Classification Levels Found On Hillary’s Private Server)
Trump has also given between $100,001 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
In 2008, Trump expressed surprise that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not attempt to impeach President George W. Bush over the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “It just seemed like she was going to really look to impeach Bush and get him out of office, which, personally, I think would have been a wonderful thing,” Trump said on CNN.
The same year, Trump called Pelosi “a very impressive person.”
In 2007, the billionaire real estate developer appeared on CNN to to excoriate then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as “very sad” and to call Hugo Chavez, then president of Venezuela, “a lot smarter than” Bush. (RELATED: Venezuela, Chicago Public Schools Face Toilet Paper Shortages)
“In many cases, I probably identify more as a Democrat,” Trumpsaid on CNN in 2004. “If you go back, it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.” (RELATED: Obama Economy Flatlines)
Trump has also established a sustained record of habitually inconsistent political positions which clash dramatically with the bedrock tenets of American conservatism. (RELATED: From High Taxes To National Health Care, Donald Trump Must Reckon With His Progressive Past)
Throughout his public life, for example, Trump has steadfastly supported abortion at virtually all points in the human gestation process. (“I’m very pro-choice,” the casino mogul told Tim Russert in October 1999.)
Trump’s opponents in the GOP primaries are criticizing his lack of participation in the party’s primary process.
“Donald Trump spent years as a Democrat and is not and has never been a conservative,” Jeb Bush press secretary Kristy Campbell told the Daily Mail.
“It should come as a surprise to no one that he has never voted in a Republican primary,” Ted Cruz press secretary Catherine Frazier added. “He speaks like a conservative out of political convenience, not personal conviction.”
The first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucus looms on Feb. 1. New Hampshire’s famous early primary is eight days later.
In New Hampshire, Trump has a wide lead over the rest of the Republican field.
Trump ran briefly and highly unsuccessfully as a Reform Party candidate for president in 2000. He lost to Pat Buchanan and did not participate as a candidate in the general election.(RELATED: Donald Trump Gets GLOWING Profile In Elitist Magazine ‘Of The Wealthiest 1 Percent’)
Trump has voted consistently in general presidential elections since 1989, records show.
