Republicans, The Donald has officially returned to the Grand Old Party fold. For now, anyway…
As you can see from the (unfortunately blurry) document here, Donald Trump — a veritable political chameleon when it comes from jumping around on his party registration — is back with the GOP. This obviously isn’t unexpected, but this is the first time I’ve been able to offer the actual document, obtained from the NYC Board of Elections.
The people over at
, which is a kind of Document Drop heaven, have a great timeline of Trump’s various party affiliations.
They note that Trump first registered Republican from his Trump Tower in 1987, listing the Queens address when he grew up as his prior home.
In 1999, he jumped over to the Independence Party. Less than two years later, he pledged his voter allegiance to the Democratic Party. That went on for another eight years, until September, 2009, when the peripatetic dabbler in presidential politics returned to the GOP.
It was
that Trump said he’d decided against running for president, disappointing various grassroots groups interested in drafting him for a run. (In December, amidst a kerfuffle over whether he would or wouldn’t moderate a presidential primary debate,
he maintained that he still had all his options open
.)
Late last year, Trump dumped the Republicans and registered as unaffiliated with any party — at least until last month, when he went full circle, according to the above April 20 document…
Trump remains involved in the political fray, although he’s got other things on his mind, including the season finale of “
,”
the legalization of casino gambling in New York
, and
.
Update
: Michael Cohen, executive vice president and special counsel to Trump, told me the real estate and reality TV magnate was simply following up on his previous promises.
“Mr. Trump, when he was contemplating a run for the presidency, had stated that if he was not satisified with who the Republican nonminee would be, then he would potentially run [as] an independent. Approximately four months ago, Mr. Trump made the decision to back Gov. Romney, and so elected to return his party affiliation to Republican.”
Cohen said Trump has played an “instrumental part in the Romney campaign” and clearly is not planning to wage his own campaign.
