Adam Duvernay

The News Journal

Presidential candidate Donald Trump has announced a Delaware chairman.

Trump's Delaware donations total $2,291.

The Delaware primary is April 26.

Count the number of Donald Trump supporters you know personally on your fingers and the number might surprise you. The names might, too.

Trump is coming to the Delaware ballot and his supporters are ready. They say he’s going to get a warm welcome and the reason is the last eight years of governance.

"He's appealing to that gut instinct. He's saying what needs to be said," 20-year-old Riley Shaw said of Trump. The University of Delaware student never has voted in a presidential election, but says he's in the middle of a political awakening.

Trump’s rise astounded even the people for whom it makes perfect sense.

“The general public does not trust elected officials,” said Rob Arlett, who serves on the Sussex County Council and recently was tapped to be the chairman for Trump’s Delaware campaign. “They don’t have any credibility anymore.”

Trump trounced the competition in Tuesday’s Arizona and Utah primaries and now has 739 of the 1,237 delegates he needs to claim the Republican nomination for president. His closest competitor is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz who walked away with 40 delegates Tuesday, which raised his total to 465.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich now has 143 delegates. Media, GOP establishment and every candidate that isn’t Trump are still talking about a contested Republican contention, and almost always in the context of stopping the mogul’s nomination.

The Delaware primary is April 26, and 16 GOP and 31 Democrat delegates are at stake.

Trump officially made the Delaware ballot on Jan. 29, and his allies are asking when he’ll make an in-person appearance.

“We have asked the Trump campaign to have Donald Trump take a visit to Delaware before the primary,” Arlett said. “The people of Delaware need to hear his message.”

If Trump does appear in Delaware, he would be first presidential candidate to campaign here this election cycle. Political observers don't think he'll be able to take the state in a general election because of historical Democratic voting patterns, making the effort to win the hearts, minds and dollars of Delawareans a more important fight for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

Republicans nearly split with Independents the 53 percent of Delaware’s registered voters who aren’t Democrats. But in Sussex County, there were more registered Republicans than Democrats early this month for the first time in as long as anyone can remember. On March 1, there were 57,457 registered Republicans and 57,220 registered Democrats.

Thank You-Know-Who.

“Anyone who tries to deny that just isn’t being honest,” said John Fluharty, former executive director of the Delaware Republican Committee and a party analyst. “And there’s also a real fear of a Hillary Clinton White House. Democratic turnout numbers are nothing like ours.”

Sussex County Democratic Committee Chair Mitch Crane said the registration numbers don't necessarily indicate Trump support, but he wouldn't be surprised if the anger at too-few jobs and too-little new wealth is pushing them that way. But even though there are candidates farther to Trump's right, he said none are scarier.

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"There's a lot of angry people, many who don't understand how government works, who listen to what a candidate promises to do without looking at whether he believes those promises or can deliver them if elected," Crane said. "He is dangerous. He has no respect for other people. He has no respect for other countries. He believes personal attacks are a way to the future."

Trump was at the bottom of the list in Delaware donations early this month with a total of $2,291. Ben Carson, now supporting Trump after ending his bid, has the most of Republican candidates at $29,553. The Republicans that follow are Cruz, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Hewlett-Packer CEO Carly Fiorina and Kasich, respectively.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Hucakbee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum raised less in Delaware than Trump.

That probably won't matter, according to Delaware State University political science professor Samuel Hoff, because Trump does most of his own campaign funding and that fact is a hallmark of his campaign. With only 16 delegates on the table here, how much is riding on the state in the primaries might not make it a battleground state at all.

Trump's history in Delaware is largely built on incorporation, including Trump Hotel and Casino Resort Inc. and its subsidiaries. In 1990, the mogul chose Wilmington as the start site of his Tour de Trump bicycle race, an 11-day competition that crossed 13 cities.

Trump moves his mouth and everyone listens. His supporters are diverse but share the ability to look past rhetoric to a message they see as an answer to a toxic political culture.

If it sounds rough around the edges, they say, maybe it’s just time for that kind of talk.

The new breed

Mom and dad, we need to talk. This isn't going to be easy for you to hear — but I'm supporting Trump for president.

It's true in Delaware as it's true nationwide: many young, often first-time voters want the bombastic billionaire in the Oval Office.

Trump isn't the first candidate Shaw supported in this tumultuous cycle, but over the winter his allegiance shift in a big way. No, he doesn't think it's a bizarre leap from backing far-left candidate Sanders to the always-inflammatory Trump.

"I don't really vibe with the establishment candidates," Shaw said. "I just started thinking for myself on this."

Shaw isn’t alone. His Facebook page Blue Hens for Trump is small at just 28 likes, but he said it’s helping organize like-minded students. What started as a forum for sharing news stories and ideas is becoming an organization dedicated to canvassing and campaigning.

And the group is just starting to make a connection with the national Students for Trump organization, unaffiliated with the official campaign. Its Delaware Chairman Dan Worthington said he's not surprised Trump is getting traction among first-time voters like himself.

He sees himself as fiscally conservative, socially tolerant and completely through with the kind of politics he's observed over his 18 years.

"I was raised Catholic, but I could care less about having Judeo-Christian values in government," Worthington said. "We just need to find a guy who can get stuff done. There's a lot more important than making sure they have the 10 Commandments posted in front of government buildings."

At the top of his issues list: reforming the nation's veteran care, immigration reform and righting the tax system. He blames the open tap of cash flowing into the political sink for ruining the old parties.

"And it leads to the dehumanization of the other side," Worthington said. "That really needs to be taken out of the equation."

Campaign finance reform matters to young voters, Hoff said, due in part to the general distrust of politics. Trump doesn't need money from special interests and Hoff said that gives him credibility.

"Just the fact this is a protest campaign against usual politics, that's important for a lot of people to identify with, the same as Bernie Sanders has engendered the same independent streak in the Democratic Party," Hoff said.

Trump represents anything but politics as usual, and his supporters don't care if the language has to be inflammatory to get the message across.

"Are all his bombshell statements turning people off? They probably are, but his supporters are not going to leave him," said Derek Reigle, a UD College Republican studying history and political science. "It's not just who I like the most, it's who will serve the nation best."

Reigle learned a lot of his politics from his father, Delaware Congressional candidate Hans Reigle, though the two don't always agree on what's the best future for the Republican Party. The younger Reigle still is undecided where his vote will ultimately go, but he's leaning to Trump.

"It's the year of the outsider. It's the year of not just buying into what both parties normally put up," he said.

Delaware GOP

Arlett's wife left Vietnam during the war and is a legalized immigrant to the United States. She doesn't like the way Trump talks about immigrants or immigration reform, and even though Arlett gets that he said he sees past personality to a message.

"The right course is to make sure you know who you have coming into this country. That's the message," Arlett said. "His motivation is to protect the people of this country and I respect that."

On economic development, because of his business accomplishments and national security because of his success with multi-national dealings, Arlett thinks Trump is the best choice. He compared the candidate to President Ronald Reagan because he's "put pride back in America."

He said he sees it in Sussex.

Arlett views himself as the same kind of outsider as Trump, and said its part of what got him elected in Sussex. He is a real estate agent who had never held elected office before he ran in 2014 for County Council and defeated an incumbent Republican, Vance Phillips, in the primary. Just like Trump hopes to do, Arlett prevailed within the GOP over a candidate who’d won lots of races before.

"The fact, he's an outsider. I can speak from personal experience because I'm one of those individuals, as well. I never have been involved in politics, and when I chose to run two years ago I had zero experience with politics or elected officials and I beat a 16-year incumbent, and then in the general election I beat that individual," Arlett said. "I have lived that experience in Sussex as well as in Delaware."

Trump isn't in the middle of a hostile takeover of Delaware's Republican Party though, according to Fluharty. The state party is going to benefit from those new Republican voters who he said represent a group who's felt voiceless in politics for too long.

Fluharty is a Kasich supporter and is on the leadership team for the governor's campaign in Delaware, but he isn't worried about Trump. Head-to-head on policy points, Fluharty doesn't put much stock in the bare-minimum specifics of Trump's campaign.

"It's on the rhetoric that he's winning votes," Fluharty said. "I look for specifics."

He's going to support the nominee no matter who it is and he believes Trump would rein in his personality during a general election and bring in voters unwilling to see Clinton become president. He said the start of a general election including Trump would be a reset button.

What's important about that, he said, is Trump's campaign is smashing the thinking you must be an ideologue to be a Republican.

"There's no question Trump is helping expand the base," he said. "I don't tell you whether you are or are not a Republican. Politics is about addition, not subtraction"

Contact Adam Duvernay at (302) 324-2785 or aduvernay@delawareonline.com.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified John Fluharty's position with the presidential campaign of Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Fluharty serves on the Kasich for America Delaware Leadership Team.

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Delaware registered voters

Democrats 310,762

Republicans 184,321

Other parties 161,581