Who Backed Trump? The Story of His Rise to the White House and His Return to the Presidency

How did Trump reach the White House twice? The story of his rise and his main backers

Al-Wasat (Iraqi newspaper) – Report

Between the world of real estate, television screens and the presidential platform, Donald Trump followed a path different from traditional political trajectories in the United States. He entered the White House contest from outside elected government office, won the presidency in 2016, and then returned to it after winning the 2024 election. This journey raises a question that goes beyond the candidate’s name: who supported him, and how did voters’ voices combine with party and financial backing to bring him to power?

He launched the presidential campaign that led him to power in June 2015, benefiting from prior fame in business and media. After competition within the Republican Party, he secured the party’s nomination for the 2016 election and defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, beginning his first term in January 2017.

After the end of his first term and his loss in the 2020 election to Joe Biden, Trump ran again and won against Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Official results recorded him receiving 312 electoral votes compared with 226 for Harris, before he took the oath on January 20, 2025 as the forty-seventh president of the United States.

The Republican base first

Republican voters formed the foundation of Trump’s electoral support. According to a Pew Research Center study on the 2024 election, 95% of Republicans who voted cast their ballot for him. That reflects party base cohesion behind their candidate, noting that the same percentage of Democratic voters voted for Harris.

His support extended to multiple social groups; the study showed he received 69% of the vote from voters who described their area of residence as rural, and 81% of the white evangelical Protestant vote. He also maintained an advantage among voters without a four-year college degree. These figures describe voting trends within various groups and do not mean that all individuals in them agreed on a single political position.

Expanded beyond the usual base

The 2024 election showed improved results for Trump among groups that had tended to lean more Democratic. Pew estimated he received 48% of votes from voters of Latino origin, compared with 36% in 2020, and 15% of the Black vote, compared with 8% four years earlier.

Nevertheless, Harris retained a majority among Black voters and a narrow lead among Latino voters. The center noted that differences in turnout were an important factor in explaining the results, alongside some voters switching between candidates.

Who backed him financially?

Businessman Elon Musk stood out among the largest financial backers during the 2024 election cycle. According to Reuters, he gave more than $250 million to support Trump and other Republican candidates. The figure relates to his political contributions in that cycle, not to an amount received by Trump personally.

Other names include Timothy Mellon, who funded a political committee supportive of Trump, and Miriam Adelson, who was among the major funders of a pro-Trump political spending group. These examples illustrate the role of donors in financing campaign activities, but they are not sufficient on their own to determine each donor’s degree of influence on the final outcome.

Why did his supporters choose him?

Voter-priority polls help explain part of the answer. In a Pew survey published in September 2024, 93% of Trump’s supporters said the economy was very important to their vote decision, while the share was 82% for immigration and 76% for violent crime.

These results indicate that economic issues, borders and security were strongly present for his supporters, with different motives for each voter and their assessment of the candidates. They measure declared priorities and do not prove that a single issue decided the election on its own.

These data show that Trump’s return to the presidency came through a cohesive party base, financial support, and the ability to attract votes from different groups. The constitutional decision was settled through states’ votes in the Electoral College, which requires winning at least 270 votes to secure the presidency.