Donald Trump:
Republican (2012–present)
Independent (2011–12)
Republican (2009–11)
Democratic (2001–09)
Reform (1999–2001)
Republican (1987–99)
Democratic (Before–1987)
JULY 1987: Trump registers for the first time from his Fifth Avenue penthouse. The real estate developer, 41 at the time, reports having previously been registered from his boyhood home in Queens (though his prior party affiliation is unclear). Trump enrolls as a REPUBLICAN
Politifact says: “We don’t need to go back as far as 1987 for this check, of course, but it shows Trump has switched quite a bit. After 12 years as a Republican, he registered with the Independence Party in 1999. That moved Trump to New York’s version of the Reform Party, which is neither Democratic nor Republican. He even won the Reform Party’s California primary for president in March 2000, despite withdrawing from that contest.
Bush’s campaign told us that “the last decade” meant when Trump was registered from 2000 to 2010. Trump was registered as a Democrat for 8 years, 1 month in that time span.
But we think a reasonable person could mistake “the last decade” to mean the last 10 years. When we added up the years since 2005, we found Trump has been registered as a Democrat for 3 years, 9 months, and registered as Republican for 5 years, 6 months (and counting).”