When Donald Trump announced he was running for president on June 16, the idea seemed faintly ridiculous. The Washington Post said that he faced “an uphill battle to be taken seriously by his rivals, political watchers and the media.” The New York Times described it as an “improbable quest for the Republican nomination.” He was polling at less than 3 percent.

A month later, Trump was at 15 percent. Despite a stream of what would seem like embarrassing gaffes for most candidates, he is now over 27 percent in the RealClearPolitics averages—well ahead of anyone else. The big loser seemed to be the former front-runner, Jeb Bush, who is now mired in the single digits.

How did Trump manage this feat? Will we look back at this next year as just a reality TV episode gone wrong? Or is this a real disruption in American politics with a large block of disaffected voters having found their oracle? We don’t pretend to be able to predict the future, but we think that a lot of the press coverage of Trump misreads who is supporting him and what it means.

First, Trump’s support is not particularly ideological. In recent YouGov polls, 20 percent of his supporters describe themselves as “liberal” or “moderate,” with 65 percent saying they are “conservative” and only 13 percent labeling themselves as “very conservative.” Less than a third of his supporters say they are involved with the Tea Party movement. Their views put them on the right side of the American electorate, but they cover the Republican mainstream.

Read the article “Who are Donald Trump’s Supporters?” on realclearpolitics.com.