Key Dates in Trumps Rise to becoming President Elect

Our current president elect is Donald J. Trump. He will officially be president in a few months on Inauguration day. How did he get here? Lets look at some key dates and events in his campaign run starting at the present and working backwards in time.

Nov 9, 2016: Trump first post-election tweet

Nov 8, 2016: Trump wins the general election and becomes president elect

During the general election voters all around the country casted their ballots for one of five presidential candidates. One candidate, Evan McMullin, ran as an independent. In the end, Trump won with 306 electoral votes (though an ongoing recount initiated by the Green Party candidate Jill Stein might change this).

Jul 20, 2016: Trump becomes the republican party's nominee for president and Pence becomes the parties nominee for vice president

Delegates at the convention voted for one of seven republican candidates. The delegates are elected through primary elections or caucuses in their respective states. A candidate needed a majority of 1,237 votes to win and Trump won with 1,725 votes in the first ballot. Texas senator Ted Cruz came in second with 484 votes although he had already dropped out of the race a month earlier.

May 3, 2016: Trump becomes the presumptive republican presidential nominee after winning the republican primary in Indiana

Indiana holds open primaries and follows a winner-take-all rule for awarding delegates to winners of the primary. Trump won the primary with a popular vote of 53.3% and this win in Indiana caused Ted Cruz (his main competitor) to drop out of the race. At this point, Trump was on track to possibly becoming the second person who has never held an elected office position to serve as president since Eisenhower.

Apr 14, 2016: Indiana GOP names 57 delegates to the National Convention

The republican party in Indiana followed the following rules: 30 delegates must vote for the winner of the primary in the first ballot. 27 must vote for the winner of their congressional districts. After the first ballot, they are free to vote for whomever they want. Since a number of these delegates in Indiana did not support trump, had trump failed to clinch the nomination in the first ballot, he may have seen his support go the other way.

June 16, 2016: Trump announces that he will run for president as a republican candidate

Of course, it was also kicked off with a tweet.