Has Trump's level of support always been there?

[History505]

In the Spring of 2011, when Trump was added in polling, he for a brief period of time was leading the 2012 Republican Primary Polls, but when he said he would not run, he sharply dropped. When he finally announced, it didn't take long until he again was rising in the polls by July of 2015, so has his level of enthusiasm always just been there?

[Young Conservative]

He has an incredibly dynamic personality, has shown to be a successful businessman, but, above all, he has always enjoyed incredibly high name recognition.

[Mr. Morden]

In the Spring of 2011, when Trump was added in polling, he for a brief period of time was leading the 2012 Republican Primary Polls, but when he said he would not run, he sharply dropped. When he finally announced, it didn't take long until he again was rising in the polls by July of 2015, so has his level of enthusiasm always just been there?

His primary support seemed to be correlated with how much media attention he was getting.  I assume that's why his numbers were lower when he wasn't running.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Yes.

Trump has represented a huge swath of the GOP who were poorly represented as the GOP Presidential Nomination because a "Mr. Small Government Conservative" beauty contest.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I think the more interesting question is at what points in the race would Hillary actually have won if the election were held that day. It seems like we can't really trust what the polls had said and that it was always much closer than it appeared. So when was she actually winning?

[mencken]

I think the more interesting question is at what points in the race would Hillary actually have won if the election were held that day. It seems like we can't really trust what the polls had said and that it was always much closer than it appeared. So when was she actually winning?

Moving the date of the election would merely move the date of when the "undecideds" ultimately admitted to themselves that they were actually going to vote for Trump.

[Matty]

I think the more interesting question is at what points in the race would Hillary actually have won if the election were held that day. It seems like we can't really trust what the polls had said and that it was always much closer than it appeared. So when was she actually winning?

in the aftermath of the dnc and the khan comments.

[Mr. Morden]

I think the more interesting question is at what points in the race would Hillary actually have won if the election were held that day. It seems like we can't really trust what the polls had said and that it was always much closer than it appeared. So when was she actually winning?

It's possible that she would have won on most of the days in October, during debate season and during the sexual assault allegation season.  538's national polling chart has her gaining during the first ~2/3rds or so of October, when all of that's going on, and then Trump narrows the gap after that:

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/national-polls/

But I guess it partially depends on what you think about people who were telling pollsters that they would vote 3rd party.  Would they have shifted away from Johnson/Stein no matter what?  Or was there some scenario in which Johnson could have gotten 5%?

[Kolip1]

ONLY DEPLORABLES SUPPORT TRUMP

[Meclazine for Israel]

I think the support was always there.

We had a pretty tight race, but the issues facing the key states such as WI, PV and MI did not materialise 3 weeks before the election.

Encumbency fatigue is the main issue.

Trump appears as a simple solution and is elected.

[Fuzzy Bear]

ONLY DEPLORABLES SUPPORT TRUMP

Time for the Vocabulary Word of the Day:

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[Fuzzy Bear]

I think the more interesting question is at what points in the race would Hillary actually have won if the election were held that day. It seems like we can't really trust what the polls had said and that it was always much closer than it appeared. So when was she actually winning?

A good question. 

I suspect that the state polls were far more defective than national polls.  Hillary really wasn't far off the National Popular Vote.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ross Perot polled 19% of the vote in 1992 despite the general self-destructive weirdness of his campaign. Jesse Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota in 1998. Etc. Stuff like that should have been treated by the two parties as a warning rather than dismissed as a series of flukes...

[angus]

should

This is the operative word in your diatribe.  Unfortunately, they have not been.