Trump protesters and his supporters battle it out. | M. Scott Mahaskey Shouting match at Trump speech in Virginia His supporters duel with a small group of protesters.

RICHMOND, Va. — The "silent majority" was screaming its head off.

The 7,000 people packed inside the cavernous exhibition hall here at Richmond International Raceway had stopped listening to Donald Trump, who continued to riff from a lectern on the stage. They were shouting down a small group of protesters gathered just below the stage who persisted for nearly 10 minutes in shouting “Dump Trump.”


“We want Trump! We want Trump!” the crowd thundered.

When they stopped, Trump continued to speak over the persistent din of shouts from the few protesters in what became a small scrum of cameras and a few bellicose Trump supporters, one of whom spat on those who had come to upstage the controversial candidate. As uniformed police officers finally escorted them out of the building, a few hundred people, smartphones held high, followed them to the door. Trump kept right on talking, ignoring the fact that he’d lost a third of the room’s attention, playing perhaps to the audience watching live on C-SPAN.

Trump’s words continue to matter less to his supporters than the strength and confidence he projects. The repeated riffs — about his standing in the polls, the “stupid people” running the country and the “disgusting people” in the press, the lament that Oreos are manufactured in Mexico — have become familiar. But he continues to stir his supporters, fed up with conventional politicians, into a frenzy, which may explain his surprising durability as the GOP’s presidential front-runner.

“We’re in first place everywhere,” said Trump, who opened his remarks here Wednesday night by rattling off a number of polls and specific poll questions underlining his No. 1 ranking, including one showing him leading in the state of Florida.

“We’re just killing in Florida,” he said, needling establishment favorites Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. “You have a governor and a sitting senator and it’s not even close.”

But the boastful billionaire, who twice took note of the winery and golf course he owns in Virginia, no longer seems content to entertain his audiences with caustic criticism of his rivals and promises to restore the greatness they believe the country has lost. As the primary battle moves into a more serious phase, Trump is trying hard to convince his supporters — not to mention rivals and reporters — that he’s not just entertaining or interesting but, potentially, a truly transformational political figure.

“This is a movement,” Trump said as he neared the end of his hourlong monologue. “This is no longer we’re playing games. This is a movement.”

Sure, the hourlong off-the-cuff speech included many hallmarks of Trump’s campaign appearances: the focus on his primacy in the polls, the digs at his rivals, the same promises to build a wall to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and to repeal Obamacare, all of which drew loud applause.

Playing to the crowd, many of whom showed up wearing hats bearing the candidate’s slogan or T-shirts silk-screened with his face, Trump recognized not just his Virginia properties and employees but also two native sons — Patrick Henry and Dave Brat. “’Give me Liberty or give me death’,” he said, quoting the revolutionary’s famous declaration. “I want to come up with a slogan as good as that.”

Brat, a tea party-backed professor who ousted then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014, met with Trump before the event and was offered up as a data point illustrating that an anti-establishment outsider can prevail. “There’s a guy who shows you, you can do things,” Trump said.

Wanting to be taken more seriously as a candidate who could go the distance, Trump is starting to temper the barbs aimed at his Republican rivals and pushing back at speculation that he’s going to drop out of the race before voting starts in February.

As he began making that point, he seemed ready to go off on a tangent about how low-polling candidates should drop out, as he might if his support erodes.

“Honestly, if I was some of those guys? I don’t know — what’s the purpose? Do they gain something by having zero? Do they gain something by going into the kids' debate?” said Trump, who mentioned George Pataki and Rand Paul by name.

But just when it seemed Trump was winding up to eviscerate Paul, he cut himself off. Instead, he took aim at Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, whom he watched debate along with “three other guys no one’s heard of” on Tuesday night.

Trump chalked up the most talked about moment of the Democratic debate, Sanders’ assertion to Clinton that the country is “sick and tired of hearing of hearing about your damn emails," to a pattern of Democrats and debate moderators going easy on her — in contrast, he said, to how he’s been treated in the first two GOP debates.

“She is being totally protected by the Democrats because what she did is illegal,” he said, offering that Clinton “did OK because nobody attacked her.

“In my debate, they said, ‘Mr. Trump, what do you think of this that the man next to you said’?” he continued. “It was like a reality television show — whereas last night, they’d ask a question, they’d get an answer. With me, it was an attack.”

Echoing Bush and Rubio, Trump asserted that Clinton and the “socialist-slash-Communist” Sanders were “giving so many things away, they couldn’t give them away fast enough.” He also argued that Clinton is effectively embracing Sanders’ anti-capitalist views in order to survive the primary.

M. Scott Mahaskey for POLITICO | M. Scott Mahaskey

Trump has been hitting Clinton for months, but the sum of his remarks here Wednesday night were those of a candidate taking a longer view of the race itself and asking his supporters to see him as a candidate intent on winning the nomination and actually being president.

“They call it the summer of Trump,” he said. “To me, it doesn’t feel [like] anything — because unless we win, it doesn’t mean anything.

“If I don’t win, I consider it to be a massive failure. Because otherwise, nothing’s going to get done.”

Two women standing in the back of the cavernous concrete-floored exhibition hall adjacent to the massive racetrack each wore multiple Trump stickers on their sweaters but were split on whether or not he’s a serious candidate.

“People are drawn to him because he represents everything this country used to be — bigger than life, obnoxiously loud sometimes, his opinion is the only opinion,” said Mary Morse, a retired schoolbus driver from Chesterfield County. “But I’m a little concerned that he’s a celebrity first, that he’s a reality TV celebrity.”

Her friend, Sara Cutler, a teacher, had fewer doubts that she’d be voting for Trump as long as he remains in the race. “I’m not here to see the celebrity,” she said. “I’m here to see my future president.”

As he wrapped up his remarks, Trump sounded as though he was once again bragging about his wealth and accomplishments.

“I have property coming out of my ears. I have very little debt, great cash flow,” he said before abruptly interjecting why it should matter. “I’m not saying that to brag. I’m saying that because that’s the kind of thinking we need in this country.”

The crowd erupted.

“I want to make you people so proud of this country again,” Trump continued, imploring the crowd to revel in the moment and the movement he says they’re all a part of.

“Take a look around — this is a special night. We are going to make America great again.”