NEWS

Trump takes victory lap, hits Bush at Clemson rally

Amanda Coyne
The Greenville News

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump celebrated his New Hampshire primary election win and set his focus on South Carolina in a campaign rally at Clemson University on Wednesday night.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the T. Ed Garrison Livestock Arena in Clemson on Wednesday, February 10, 2016.

The rally was part victory lap, part stump speech and part get out the vote effort. Trump savored his New Hampshire win, recited crowd-favorite pledges to build a wall on the Mexican border and repeatedly reminded the audience: "I don't want your money, I want your vote."

Trump said he was running on an hour's sleep since the Tuesday night victory.

"But when you have victory, you don't need sleep," Trump said to a raucously cheering crowd.

Throughout Trump's rambling speech, he repeatedly threw jabs at former Gov. Jeb Bush, who finished third in Tuesday's primary. He called Bush a "schlepper" and mocked the Bush campaign's high spending in Iowa and New Hampshire. Bush is currently fourth in RealClearPolitics' South Carolina Republican polling aggregate; Trump is first.

Trump says he insults Bush because Bush has run attack ads against him in early primary states.

"If he stops spending money on negative ads against me I’ll stop talking about him," Trump said. "I hate to waste time on this guy because he's not going to win."

Most of the arena's bench seating, which accommodates 3,000, was occupied, as well as half the arena's floor worth of seats. The audience had Trump hats and scarves; two waved a copy of Trump's book "The Art of the Deal" in the air, while another held a poster of Trump donning a photoshopped Clemson hat.

Trump played to the local crowd, saying Clemson's national championship game against Alabama was "better than the Super Bowl" and that the Tigers would "go all the way" next season. The crowd responded with a Clemson cadence count.

When Trump opened the floor to questions, some audience members asked about Medicare and decreasing the trade deficit; others asked Trump to sign a copy of "The Art of the Deal" or started Trump cheers.

By 3:30 p.m., three and a half hours before the rally began, hundreds of people had lined up outside Clemson's T. Ed Garrison Livestock Arena, waiting to see the bombastic billionaire. When doors opened, crowds filled the arena for the real estate mogul’s rally as songs including “Billionaire” and “I Wanna Be Rich” played on the speakers.

Jim Cooley traveled from Georgia to see Trump for the seventh time and got in line at 9 a.m. on a frigid day. He said he likes the Republican frontrunner because "he doesn't talk PC."

“He says what’s on his mind,” Cooley said.

“We all do, but he can say it louder,” said Gale Whiteford, of Laurens, chiming in. She got in line at noon with her family. They had tried to go to Trump’s January rally in Gilbert, but the venue was already full by the time they arrived. They watched the rally, where he was endorsed by South Carolina Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster, from outside the venue on a big screen “with about 4,000 other people.”

Pastor Mark Burns, of Easley, echoed these sentiments in a fiery invocation in which he thanked God that Trump "has the boldness to say what others will not say."

Jim Yates, also from Laurens, sported a sombrero with a Trump sticker on the front “to show that Hispanics support Trump” and carried around a Trump action figure that recited catchphrases from “The Apprentice.” Yates, a Vietnam veteran, has been to nine Trump rallies and said the candidate had his support because of his immigration policies and “common sense.”

“Mr. Trump is what America is all about,” Yates said.

Pollster: Trump's grip on lead weakens as GOP field consolidates

John Kasich gets bigger-than-expected crowds on South Carolina primary trail