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On March 15th, members of the WVRWF and other Republicans will mail Donald Trump a postcard that expresses our support of him. And we, in vast numbers, from all corners of the world, will overwhelm the man with our support and belief in him. We will show the media and the politicians we are standing with him.

And most importantly, we will bury the White House post office with complete support of our President - We are honored that he was willing to take on this job!

If each one of us every supporter - writes even a single postcard and we put them all in the mail on the same day,March 15th...Well, you do the math!

Write one postcard. Write a dozen! Take a picture and post it on social media (and send it to Dale Thomas!)

On March 15th, mail your messages to:President Donald J. TrumpThe White House1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NWWashington, DC 20500

See the article here:
Events - Westlake Village Republican Women, Federated 2018

History

The term Republican was adopted in 1792 by supporters of Thomas Jefferson, who favoured a decentralized government with limited powers. Although Jeffersons political philosophy is consistent with the outlook of the modern Republican Party, his faction, which soon became known as the Democratic-Republican Party, ironically evolved by the 1830s into the Democratic Party, the modern Republican Partys chief rival.

The Republican Party traces its roots to the 1850s, when antislavery leaders (including former members of the Democratic, Whig, and Free-Soil parties) joined forces to oppose the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories by the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act. At meetings in Ripon, Wisconsin (May 1854), and Jackson, Michigan (July 1854), they recommended forming a new party, which was duly established at the political convention in Jackson.

At their first presidential nominating convention in 1856, the Republicans nominated John C. Frmont on a platform that called on Congress to abolish slavery in the territories, reflecting a widely held view in the North. Although ultimately unsuccessful in his presidential bid, Frmont carried 11 Northern states and received nearly two-fifths of the electoral vote. During the first four years of its existence, the party rapidly displaced the Whigs as the main opposition to the dominant Democratic Party. In 1860 the Democrats split over the slavery issue, as the Northern and Southern wings of the party nominated different candidates (Stephen A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge, respectively); the election that year also included John Bell, the nominee of the Constitutional Union Party. Thus, the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was able to capture the presidency, winning 18 Northern states and receiving 60 percent of the electoral vote but only 40 percent of the popular vote. By the time of Lincolns inauguration as president, however, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union, and the country soon descended into the American Civil War (186165).

In 1863 Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared slaves in rebelling states to be forever free and welcomed them to join the Unions armed forces. The abolition of slavery would, in 1865, be formally entrenched in the Constitution of the United States with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. Because the historical role played by Lincoln and the Republican Party in the abolition of slavery came to be regarded as their greatest legacy, the Republican Party is sometimes referred to as the party of Lincoln.

The prolonged agony of the Civil War weakened Lincolns prospects for reelection in 1864. To broaden his support, he chose as his vice presidential candidate Andrew Johnson, a pro-Union Democratic senator from Tennessee, and the Lincoln-Johnson ticket subsequently won a landslide victory over Democrat George B. McClellan and his running mate George Pendleton. Following Lincolns assassination at the end of the war, Johnson favoured Lincolns moderate program for the Reconstruction of the South over the more punitive plan backed by the Radical Republican members of Congress. Stymied for a time by Johnsons vetoes, the Radical Republicans won overwhelming control of Congress in the 1866 elections and engineered Johnsons impeachment in the House of Representatives. Although the Senate fell one vote short of convicting and removing Johnson, the Radical Republicans managed to implement their Reconstruction program, which made the party anathema across the former Confederacy. In the North the partys close identification with the Union victory secured it the allegiance of most farmers, and its support of protective tariffs and of the interests of big business eventually gained it the backing of powerful industrial and financial circles.

The 1860 election is today regarded by most political observers as the first of three critical elections in the United Statescontests that produced sharp and enduring changes in party loyalties across the country (although some analysts consider the election of 1824 to be the first critical election). After 1860 the Democratic and Republican parties became the major parties in a largely two-party system. In federal elections from the 1870s to the 1890s, the parties were in rough balanceexcept in the South, which became solidly Democratic. The two parties controlled Congress for almost equal periods, though the Democrats held the presidency only during the two terms of Grover Cleveland (188589 and 189397).

In the countrys second critical election, in 1896, the Republicans won the presidency and control of both houses of Congress, and the Republican Party became the majority party in most states outside the South. The Republican presidential nominee that year was William McKinley, a conservative who favoured high tariffs on foreign goods and sound money tied to the value of gold. The Democrats, already burdened by the economic depression that began under President Cleveland, nominated William Jennings Bryan, who advocated cheap money (money available at low interest rates) based on both gold and silver.

The assassination of President McKinley in 1901 elevated to the presidency Theodore Roosevelt, leader of the partys progressive wing. Roosevelt opposed monopolistic and exploitative business practices, adopted a more conciliatory attitude toward labour, and urged the conservation of natural resources. He was reelected in 1904 but declined to run in 1908, deferring to his secretary of war and friend, William Howard Taft, who won handily. Subsequently disenchanted with Tafts conservative policies, Roosevelt unsuccessfully challenged him for the Republican nomination in 1912. Roosevelt then bolted the Republican Party to form the Progressive Party (Bull Moose Party) and ran for president against Taft and the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson. With the Republican vote divided, Wilson won the presidency, and he was reelected in 1916. During the spectacular prosperity of the 1920s, the Republicans conservative and probusiness policies proved more attractive to voters than Wilsons brand of idealism and internationalism. The Republicans easily won the presidential elections of 1920, 1924, and 1928.

The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed had severe consequences for the Republicans, largely because of their unwillingness to combat the effects of the depression through direct government intervention in the economy. In the election of 1932, considered the countrys third critical election, Republican incumbent President Herbert Hoover was overwhelmingly defeated by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Republicans were relegated to the status of a minority party. Roosevelts three reelections (he was the only president to serve more than two terms), the succession of Harry S. Truman to the presidency on Roosevelts death in 1945, and Trumans narrow election over New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 kept the Republicans out of the White House for two decades. Although most Republicans in the 1930s vehemently opposed Roosevelts New Deal social programs, by the 1950s the party had largely accepted the federal governments expanded role and regulatory powers.

In 1952 the Republican Party nominated as its presidential candidate World War II supreme Allied commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, who easily defeated Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson in the general election. Despite Eisenhowers centrist views, the Republican platform was essentially conservative, calling for a strong anticommunist stance in foreign affairs, reductions in government regulation of the economy, lower taxes for the wealthy, and resistance to federal civil rights legislation. Nevertheless, Eisenhower did dispatch federal troops to Arkansas in 1957 to enforce the court-ordered racial integration of a high school in Little Rock; he also signed the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960. Moreover, his moderate Republicanism led him to oversee an expansion of social security, an increase in the minimum wage, and the creation of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

In the early 1950s Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin became the partys most ardent anticommunist, taking the limelight while attempting to expose communists who he claimed were in the American government. In the interest of party unity, Eisenhower chose not to criticize McCarthys demagogic red-baiting and occasionally appeared to support him; privately, however, the president did not hide his enmity for McCarthy, worked to discredit him, and pushed Republican senators to censure him.

The party retained the traditional support of both big and small business and gained new support from growing numbers of middle-class suburbanites andperhaps most significantlywhite Southerners, who were upset by the prointegration policies of leading Democrats, including President Truman, who had ordered the integration of the military. Eisenhower was reelected in 1956, but in 1960 Richard M. Nixon, Eisenhowers vice president, lost narrowly to Democrat John F. Kennedy.

The Republicans were in severe turmoil at their 1964 convention, where moderates and conservatives battled for control of the party. Ultimately, the conservatives secured the nomination of Senator Barry M. Goldwater, who lost by a landslide to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedys vice president and successor. By 1968 the partys moderate faction regained control and again nominated Nixon, who narrowly won the popular vote over Hubert H. Humphrey, Johnsons vice president. Many Southern Democrats abandoned the party to vote for the anti-integration candidate George C. Wallace. Importantly, the 1964 and 1968 elections signaled the death of the Democratic Solid South, as both Goldwater and Nixon made significant inroads there. In 1964, 5 of the 6 states won by Goldwater were in the South; in 1968, 11 Southern states voted for Nixon and only 1 voted for Humphrey.

Although Nixon was reelected by a landslide in 1972, Republicans made few gains in congressional, state, and local elections and failed to win control of Congress. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned the presidency in August 1974 and was succeeded in office by Gerald R. Ford, the first appointed vice president to become president. Ford lost narrowly to Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. In 1980 Ronald W. Reagan, the charismatic leader of the Republican Partys conservative wing, defeated Carter and helped the Republicans to regain control of the Senate, which they held until 1987.

Reagan introduced deep tax cuts and launched a massive buildup of U.S. military forces. His personal popularity and an economic recovery contributed to his 49-state victory over Democrat Walter F. Mondale in 1984. His vice president, George Bush, continued the Republicans presidential success by handily defeating Democrat Michael S. Dukakis in 1988. During Bushs term, the Cold War came to an end after communism collapsed in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. In 1991 Bush led an international coalition that drove Iraqi armies out of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War. Congress continued to be controlled by the Democrats, however, and Bush lost his bid for reelection in 1992 to another Southern Democrat, Bill Clinton. Partly because of Clintons declining popularity in 199394, the Republicans won victories in the 1994 midterm elections that gave them control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954. They promptly undertook efforts to overhaul the countrys welfare system and to reduce the budget deficit, but their uncompromising and confrontational style led many voters to blame them for a budget impasse in 199596 that resulted in two partial government shutdowns. Clinton was reelected in 1996, though the Republicans retained control of Congress.

In 2000 Texas Governor George W. Bush, son of the former president, recaptured the presidency for the Republicans, receiving 500,000 fewer popular votes than Democrat Al Gore but narrowly winning a majority of the electoral vote (271266) after the Supreme Court of the United States ordered a halt to the manual recounting of disputed ballots in Florida. Bush was only the second son of a president to assume the nations highest office. The Republicans also won a majority in both chambers of Congress (though the Democrats gained effective control of the Senate in 2001 following the decision of Republican Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont to became an independent). A surge in Bushs popularity following the September 11 attacks of 2001 enabled the Republicans to recapture the Senate and to make gains in the House of Representatives in 2002. In 2004 Bush was narrowly reelected, winning both the popular and electoral vote, and the Republicans kept control of both houses of Congress. In the 2006 midterm elections, however, the Republicans fared poorly, hindered largely by the growing opposition to the Iraq War, and the Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate. In the general election of 2008 the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, was defeated by Democrat Barack Obama, and the Democrats increased their majority in both houses of Congress. The following year the Republican National Committee elected Michael Steele as its first African American chairman.

With a gain of some 60 seats, a swing not registered since 1948, Republicans recaptured control of the House and dramatically reduced the Democrats majority in the Senate in the 2010 midterm election. The election, which was widely seen as a referendum on the Obama administrations policy agenda, was marked by anxiety over the struggling economy (especially the high unemployment rate) and by the upsurge of the Tea Partya populist movement whose adherents generally opposed excessive taxation and big government. Tea Party candidates, some of whom had displaced candidates favoured by the Republican establishment during the primaries, had mixed success in the general election.

In the 2012 general election, the Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was unable to unseat Obama. The situation in Congress remained relatively unchanged, with Republicans retaining their hold on the House of Representatives and Democrats successfully defending their majority in the Senate. The Republicans regained control of the Senate during the 2014 midterm elections.

The 2016 presidential election was a watershed moment for the Republican Party. The partys nomination was captured by businessman and television personality Donald Trump, who easily defeated more-mainstream Republican candidates such as Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz in the primaries. Trumps far-right social positions and outspoken hostility toward immigrants made a number of mainstream Republicans concerned that he was setting the party up for a Goldwater-esque landslide electoral defeat. But, to the surprise of most political pundits, he won the electoral college despite amassing almost three million fewer popular votes than Democrat Hillary Clinton, giving Republicans the presidency for the first time in eight years to go alongside the partys retention of power in both chambers of Congress.

Although its founders refused to recognize the right of states and territories to practice slavery, the modern Republican Party supports states rights against the power of the federal government in most cases, and it opposes the federal regulation of traditionally state and local matters, such as policing and education. Because the party is highly decentralized (as is the Democratic Party), it encompasses a wide variety of opinion on certain issues, though it is ideologically more unified at the national level than the Democratic Party is. The Republicans advocate reduced taxes as a means of stimulating the economy and advancing individual economic freedom. They tend to oppose extensive government regulation of the economy, government-funded social programs, affirmative action, and policies aimed at strengthening the rights of workers. Many Republicans, though not all, favour increased government regulation of the private, noneconomic lives of citizens in some areas, such as abortion, though most Republicans also strongly oppose gun-control legislation. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to support organized prayer in public schools and to oppose the legal recognition of equal rights for gays and lesbians (see gay rights movement). Regarding foreign policy, the Republican Party traditionally has supported a strong national defense and the aggressive pursuit of U.S. national security interests, even when it entails acting unilaterally or in opposition to the views of the international community.

Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party formulate their platforms quadrennially at national political conventions, which are held to nominate the parties presidential candidates. The conventions take place in the summer of each presidential election year; by tradition, the incumbent party holds its convention second. The Republican National Convention typically gathers some 2,000 delegates who are selected during the winter and spring.

Until the 1970s, few nationwide rules governed the selection of delegates to the Republican National Convention. After the Democratic Party adopted a system based on state primaries and caucuses, the Republicans followed suit. More than 40 states now select delegates to the Republican convention through primary elections, while several other states choose delegates through caucuses. Virtually all Republican primaries allocate delegates on a winner-take-all basis, so that the candidate who wins the most votes in a state is awarded all the delegates of that state. In contrast, almost all Democratic primaries allocate delegates based on the proportion of the vote each candidate receives. As a result, the Republicans tend to choose their presidential nominees more quickly than the Democrats do, often long before the summer nominating convention, leaving the convention simply to ratify the winner of the primaries.

In addition to confirming the partys presidential nominee and adopting the party platform, the national convention formally chooses a national committee to organize the next convention and to govern the party until the next convention is held. The Republican National Committee (RNC) consists of about 150 party leaders representing all U.S. states and territories. Its chairman is typically named by the partys presidential nominee and then formally elected by the committee. Republican members of the House and the Senate organize themselves into party conferences that elect the party leaders of each chamber. In keeping with the decentralized nature of the party, each chamber also creates separate committees to raise and disburse funds for House and Senate election campaigns. Although Republican congressional party organizations maintain close informal relationships with the RNC, they are formally separate from it and not subject to its control. Similarly, state party organizations are not subject to direct control by the national committee.

Read more from the original source:
Republican Party | Definition, History, & Beliefs ...

The French Republican Calendar (French: calendrier rpublicain franais), also commonly called the French Revolutionary Calendar (calendrier rvolutionnaire franais), was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871. The revolutionary system was designed in part to remove all religious and royalist influences from the calendar, and was part of a larger attempt at decimalisation in France (which also included decimal time of day, decimalisation of currency, and metrication). It was used in government records in France and other areas under French rule, including Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Malta and Italy.

Sylvain Marchal, prominent anticlerical atheist, published the first edition of his Almanach des Honntes-gens (Almanac of Honest People) in 1788.[1] On pages 1415 appears a calendar, consisting of twelve months. The first month is "Mars, ou Princeps" (March, or First), the last month is "Fvrier, ou Duodcembre" (February, or Twelfth). (The months of September [meaning "the seventh"] through December [meaning "the tenth"] are already numeric names, although their meanings do not match their positions in either the Julian or the Gregorian calendar since the Romans changed the first month of a year from March to January.) The lengths of the months are the same; however, the 10th, 20th, and 30th are singled out of each month as the end of a dcade (group of ten). Individual days were assigned, instead of to the traditional saints, to people noteworthy for mostly secular achievements; 25 December is assigned to both Jesus and Newton.[citation needed]

Later editions of the almanac would switch to the Republican Calendar.[citation needed]

The days of the French Revolution and Republic saw many efforts to sweep away various trappings of the ancien rgime (the old feudal monarchy); some of these were more successful than others. The new Republican government sought to institute, among other reforms, a new social and legal system, a new system of weights and measures (which became the metric system), and a new calendar. Amid nostalgia for the ancient Roman Republic, the theories of the Enlightenment were at their peak, and the devisers of the new systems looked to nature for their inspiration. Natural constants, multiples of ten, and Latin as well as Ancient Greek derivations formed the fundamental blocks from which the new systems were built.

The new calendar was created by a commission under the direction of the politician Charles-Gilbert Romme seconded by Claude Joseph Ferry and Charles-Franois Dupuis. They associated with their work the chemist Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, the mathematician and astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange, the astronomer Joseph Jrme Lefranois de Lalande, the mathematician Gaspard Monge, the astronomer and naval geographer Alexandre Guy Pingr, and the poet, actor and playwright Fabre d'glantine, who invented the names of the months, with the help of Andr Thouin, gardener at the Jardin des Plantes of the Musum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. As the rapporteur of the commission, Charles-Gilbert Romme presented the new calendar to the Jacobin-controlled National Convention on 23 September 1793, which adopted it on 24 October 1793 and also extended it proleptically to its epoch of 22 September 1792. It is because of his position as rapporteur of the commission that the creation of the republican calendar is attributed to Romme.[2]

The calendar is often called the "French Revolutionary Calendar" because it was created during the Revolution, but this is somewhat of a misnomer. Indeed, there was initially a debate as to whether the calendar should celebrate the Great Revolution, which began in July 1789, or the Republic, which was established in 1792.[3] Immediately following 14 July 1789, papers and pamphlets started calling 1789 year I of Liberty and the following years II and III. It was in 1792, with the practical problem of dating financial transactions, that the legislative assembly was confronted with the problem of the calendar. Originally, the choice of epoch was either 1 January 1789 or 14 July 1789. After some hesitation the assembly decided on 2 January 1792 that all official documents would use the "era of Liberty" and that the year IV of Liberty started on 1 January 1792. This usage was modified on 22 September 1792 when the Republic was proclaimed and the Convention decided that all public documents would be dated Year I of the French Republic. The decree of 2 January 1793 stipulated that the year II of the Republic began on 1 January 1793; this was revoked with the introduction of the new calendar, which set 22 September 1793 as the beginning of year II. The establishment of the Republic was used as the epochal date for the calendar; therefore, the calendar commemorates the Republic, not the Revolution. In France, it is known as the calendrier rpublicain as well as the calendrier rvolutionnaire.

French coins of the period naturally used this calendar. Many show the year (French: an) in Arabic numbers, although Roman numerals were used on some issues. Year 11 coins typically have a "XI" date to avoid confusion with the Roman "II".

The French Revolution is usually considered to have ended with the coup of 18 Brumaire, Year VIII (9 November 1799), the coup d'tat of Napoleon Bonaparte against the established constitutional regime of the Directoire.

The Concordat of 1801 re-established the Roman Catholic Church as an official institution in France, although not as the state religion of France. The concordat took effect from Easter Sunday, 28 Germinal, Year XI (8 April 1802); it restored the names of the days of the week to the ones from the Gregorian Calendar, and fixed Sunday as the official day of rest and religious celebration.[4] However, the other attributes of the republican calendar, the months, and years, remained as they were.

The French Republic ended with the coronation of Napoleon I as Empereur des Franais (Emperor of the French) on 11 Frimaire, Year XIII (2 December 1804), but the republican calendar would remain in place for another year. Napoleon finally abolished the republican calendar with effect from 1 January 1806 (the day after 10 Nivse Year XIV), a little over twelve years after its introduction. It was, however, used again briefly during the short period of the Paris Commune, 623 May 1871 (16 Floral3 Prairial Year LXXIX).

Some legal texts that were adopted when the Republican Calendar was officially in use are still in force in France and other nations or territories which at the time were incorporated into revolutionary France, such as present-day Belgium, Luxembourg and the German territories to the west of the Rhine river. These documents have kept their original dates for legal accuracy and citation purposes.[5]

Years appear in writing as Roman numerals (usually), with epoch 22 September 1792, the beginning of the "Republican Era" (the day the French First Republic was proclaimed, one day after the Convention abolished the monarchy). As a result, Roman Numeral I indicates the first year of the republic, that is, the year before the calendar actually came into use. By law, the beginning of each year was set at midnight, beginning on the day the apparent autumnal equinox falls at the Paris Observatory.

There were twelve months, each divided into three ten-day weeks called dcades. The tenth day, dcadi, replaced Sunday as the day of rest and festivity. The five or six extra days needed to approximate the solar or tropical year were placed after the months at the end of each year and called complementary days. This arrangement was an almost exact copy of the calendar used by the Ancient Egyptians, though in their case the beginning of the year was marked by summer solstice rather than autumn equinox.

A period of four years ending on a leap day was to be called a "Franciade". The name "Olympique" was originally proposed[6] but changed to Franciade to commemorate the fact that it had taken the revolution four years to establish a republican government in France.[7]

The leap year was called Sextile, an allusion to the "bissextile" leap years of the Julian and Gregorian calendars, because it contained a sixth complementary day.

Each day in the Republican Calendar was divided into ten hours, each hour into 100 decimal minutes, and each decimal minute into 100 decimal seconds. Thus an hour was 144 conventional minutes (more than twice as long as a conventional hour), a minute was 86.4 conventional seconds (44% longer than a conventional minute), and a second was 0.864 conventional seconds (13.6% shorter than a conventional second).

Clocks were manufactured to display this decimal time, but it did not catch on. Mandatory use of decimal time was officially suspended 7 April 1795, although some cities continued to use decimal time as late as 1801.[8]

The numbering of years in the Republican Calendar by Roman numerals ran counter to this general decimalization tendency.

The Republican calendar year began the day the autumnal equinox occurred in Paris, and had twelve months of 30 days each, which were given new names based on nature, principally having to do with the prevailing weather in and around Paris.

*Note: On many printed calendars of Year II (179394), the month of Thermidor was named Fervidor (from Latin fervens, "hot").

Most of the month names were new words coined from French, Latin, or Greek. The endings of the names are grouped by season. "Dor" means "giving" in Greek.[9]

In Britain, a contemporary wit mocked the Republican Calendar by calling the months: Wheezy, Sneezy and Freezy; Slippy, Drippy and Nippy; Showery, Flowery and Bowery; Hoppy, Croppy and Poppy.[10] The Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle suggested somewhat more serious English names in his 1837 work The French Revolution: A History,[9] namely Vintagearious, Fogarious, Frostarious, Snowous, Rainous, Windous, Buddal, Floweral, Meadowal, Reapidor, Heatidor, and Fruitidor. Like the French originals, they are neologisms suggesting a meaning related to the season.

The month is divided into three dcades or "weeks" of ten days each, named simply:

Dcades were abandoned in Floral an X (April 1802).[11]

The Catholic Church used a calendar of saints, which named each day of the year after an associated saint. To reduce the influence of the Church, Fabre d'glantine introduced a Rural Calendar in which each day of the year had a unique name associated with the rural economy, stated to correspond to the time of year. Every dcadi (ending in 0) was named after an agricultural tool. Each quintidi (ending in 5) was named for a common animal. The rest of the days were named for "grain, pasture, trees, roots, flowers, fruits" and other plants, except for the first month of winter, Nivse, during which the rest of the days were named after minerals.[12][13]

Our starting point was the idea of celebrating, through the calendar, the agricultural system, and of leading the nation back to it, marking the times and the fractions of the year by intelligible or visible signs taken from agriculture and the rural economy. (...)

As the calendar is something that we use so often, we must take advantage of this frequency of use to put elementary notions of agriculture before the people to show the richness of nature, to make them love the fields, and to methodically show them the order of the influences of the heavens and of the products of the earth.

The priests assigned the commemoration of a so-called saint to each day of the year: this catalogue exhibited neither utility nor method; it was a collection of lies, of deceit or of charlatanism.

We thought that the nation, after having kicked out this canonised mob from its calendar, must replace it with the objects that make up the true riches of the nation, worthy objects not from a cult, but from agriculture useful products of the soil, the tools that we use to cultivate it, and the domesticated animals, our faithful servants in these works; animals much more precious, without doubt, to the eye of reason, than the beatified skeletons pulled from the catacombs of Rome.

So we have arranged in the column of each month, the names of the real treasures of the rural economy. The grains, the pastures, the trees, the roots, the flowers, the fruits, the plants are arranged in the calendar, in such a way that the place and the day of the month that each product occupies is precisely the season and the day that Nature presents it to us.

Five extra days six in leap years were national holidays at the end of every year. These were originally known as les sans-culottides (after sans-culottes), but after year III (1795) as les jours complmentaires:

Below are the Gregorian dates each Republican year (an in French) began while the calendar was in effect.

* Extra (sextile) day inserted before date, due to previous leap year[15]

The calendar was abolished in the year XIV (1805). After this date, opinions seem to differ on the method by which the leap years would have been determined if the calendar were still in force. There are at least four hypotheses used to convert dates from the Gregorian calendar:

The following table shows when several years of the Republican Era begin on the Gregorian calendar, according to each of the four above methods:

XV (15)

1806

23 September

23 September

23 September

23 September

XVI (16)

1807

24 September*

23 September

24 September*

24 September*

XVII (17)

1808

23 September

23 September*

23 September

23 September

XVIII (18)

1809

23 September

23 September

23 September

23 September

XIX (19)

1810

23 September

23 September

23 September

23 September

XX (20)

1811

23 September

23 September

24 September*

23 September

CCXXV (225)

2016

22 September

22 September*

22 September

23 September*

CCXXVI (226)

2017

22 September

22 September

22 September

23 September

CCXXVII (227)

2018

23 September*

22 September

22 September

23 September

CCXXVIII (228)

2019

23 September

22 September

23 September*

23 September

* Extra (sextile) day inserted before date, due to previous leap year

For this calendar, the Romme method of calculating leap years is used. Other methods may differ by one day. Time may be cached and therefore not accurate. Decimal time is according to Paris mean time, which is 9 minutes 21 seconds (6.49 decimal minutes) ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. This is as time of page generated (Mon 2018-05-28 02:11:33 UTC, Mon 2018-05-28 02:20:54 TMP (Gregorian calendar, conventional time), .09135 decimal UT, Unix timestamp 1527473493) (update)

Leap years in the calendar are a point of great dispute, due to the contradicting statements in the establishing decree[23] stating:

Each year begins at midnight, with the day on which the true autumnal equinox falls for the Paris Observatory.

and:

Go here to see the original:
French Republican Calendar - Wikipedia

Assembly Minority Leader Bramnick suggests even Democratic lawmakers will be hard pressed to back the governors budget plan and call for higher taxes

Scary and extreme are the words Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick (R-Union) repeatedly used yesterday to describe Gov. Phil Murphys plan to hike taxes and increase spending. Talking to reporters, Bramnick said Murphys fiscal policies are putting Democratic lawmakers in a difficult spot with New Jerseys tax-weary voters.

Its just a matter of time before the public goes, You know something, maybe we should give a chance to the other side, Bramnick said, alluding to next years midterm election. Thats how it works.

Its not surprising that Republicans like Bramnick dont see eye to eye with Murphy when it comes to the state budget. But theres also been an unwillingness among Democrats to accept the governors call for higher taxes. Thats given the GOP an opening to draw a more direct a contrast between their approach and the governors.

For example, while Murphy is calling for a significant spending increase, Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. (R-Union) has proposed a measure that would limit yearly state spending hikes to a modest 2 percent. Meanwhile, Bramnick is backing legislation that would force lawmakers to say whether they agree with Murphys call to break a bipartisan deal from just a few years ago that increased the state gas tax in exchange for a slight reduction of the sales tax. The GOP bills are unlikely to win passage in the Democratic-controlled Legislature, but they do underscore the pressure the Republicans want to put on Democratic lawmakers in the runup to the June 30 deadline for a new state budget.

Its hard for me to understand how the Democrats can come to terms with the extreme and scary, tax-filled agenda of the governor, Bramnick said.

In all, Murphys$37.4 billionbudget plan for fiscal 2019 would increase state spending by nearly 8 percent, compared with the budget for the current fiscal year, which was enacted by former Gov. Chris Christie. A major chunk of the increase would go to the grossly underfunded public-employee pension system. Other increases are planned for K-12 education, public preschool, college-tuition assistance programs, and New Jersey Transit.

Speaking about Murphys budget proposals yesterday, Bramnick said New Jersey residents are already frustrated with the states high cost of living. Adding insult to injury, he suggested, was Murphys recent decision toink a new dealwith the union that represents the largest group of state workers without getting any real concessions from labor leaders. That decision also came as Murphys budget carries on a cut in funding for the states popular Homestead property-tax relief program, though thats something Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex) has alreadypromisedwill be reversed.

Its the cumulative impact of Murphys proposals, from the tax hikes to his promise to eventually provide free community college to students across the state, that is leading many of his constituents to say they are ready to leave New Jersey, Bramnick said.

Im just hoping we dont scare everybody out of this state, he said.

While Democratic legislative leaders so far have refused to embrace Murphys call for higher taxes, there is a sense in Trenton that they will eventually acquiesce, at least to some degree. If they do, that will likely prompt Republicans to do everything they can to make sure voters remember who to blame in 2019.

For example, Murphy has called the slight reduction of the sales tax from 7 percent to 6.625 percent a gimmick that was designed to give the Republican Christie a political talking point. But the lower sales tax is now saving taxpayers an estimated $581 million, and the 2016 tax legislation included a poison pill that was designed to protect thebipartisan dealby requiring the gas-tax hike to be repealed if any of the tax cuts that went along with it are eventually reversed.

Bramnick doesnt want this years possible undoing of the 2016 tax deal to get muddied up in obscure budget language, which could be used to get around the poison pill. Hes calling for there to be a separate vote held in the State House that puts every lawmaker on record, giving New Jersey voters a chance to know exactly who reneges on the bipartisan agreement.

You can call it whatever you want, but it did lower taxes, Bramnick said. It may not have had a significant effect, but it was a lowering of some tax, which is never easy in this state.

He also suggested that its Democratic lawmakers who have the most to lose next fall when voters will be casting their ballots in the first midterm election of Murphys tenure.

We know from all the polling that the pocketbook issues are the most important, he said.

Assembly Pro Tem Green remembered by colleagues We began our government service in Plainfield. Jerry was Chairman of the Democrats and I was a Republican Councilman. During our 35 years we always had a strong friendship -Jon Bramnick

UNION COUNTY, NJ Jerry Green, the third-highest ranking member in the state Assembly who died April 18, was remembered by his colleagues in the state Legislature as a leader, friend and mentor. He was 79.

Green, a Democrat, served in the Assembly since 1992 and resigned in January as chairman of the Union County Democratic Committee. He left his position in the county Democratic Party to focus his energy on recovering from an illness, a January press release from the UCDC said.

State Sen. Nicholas Scutari who represents the parts of parts of Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties recalled the former assemblyman as a champion of progressive policies. Green represented the 22nd Legislative District, which includes Clark, Fanwood, Linden and Plainfield, same as Scutari.

He was so much more than just a colleague and mentor to succeeding generations of politicians he was a true gentleman legislator who should be remembered for championing progressive policies aimed at helping those in need, Scutari said in an April 19 statement.

Funeral services were private, according to release from the Union County Democratic Party, but a public memorial was being planned. No details were available. Green served as a county freeholder for two non-consecutive terms. In the Assembly, he chaired the Housing and Community Development Committee and was a member of the Health and Senior Services Committee.

Legislators on both sides of the aisle, including Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick, sent condolences to Green and his family.Bramnick represents the 21st Legislative District, which includes parts of Morris, Somerset and Union counties.

Jerry Green was a friend for 30 years, Bramnick said in an April 19 statement. We understood that talking to each other and treating each other with respect was very important. I will miss Jerry and thank him for his service to our state. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.LocalSource previously reported that Green had not attended any legislative or voting sessions since at least November, when he was re-elected to serve another term.

Other local lawmakers, including state Sen. Joseph Cryan and Assemblyman Jamel Holley also remembered Green. Both represent parts of Elizabeth, Hillside, Union and Roselle in the 20th Legislative District.

Jerry Green was a champion of civil rights and was on the frontlines in our state in the fight to provide an affordable and accessible education for all of our children and to provide affordable housing for everyone, Cryan said in a statement.

Holley, meanwhile, called the late assemblyman an inspiration in an April 19 statement. Jerry was a hard-working man his entire life; he never retired, Holley said. He never stopped trying to help others get ahead. I will never forget his service to New Jersey, as he was focused on creating better policy and inspiring conversation on the issues that truly matter in our state.I will miss my friend, my mentor and the reason why I am committed to serving others.

https://comcastnewsmakers.com/Videos/2018/3/19/NJ180314-14

Please visit the Union County YAM Exhibit from March 1st to March 23rd at The Plaza @ Liberty Hall Center,1085 Morris Avenue, Union, NJ

For more information click here

The team getting ready to hit the streets for Saturday campaigning

Legislative Panel BreakfastwithJon Bramnick, Richard Codey,Tom Kean, and Vincent Prieto

November 21 | 8:30 10:30 am

8:30 9 breakfast & networking | 9 10:30 program

Shackamaxon Country Club | 100 Tillinghast Turn | Scotch Plains

Join us for a panel discussion with the top legislators in New Jersey. Be prepared with questions! Our panelists will talk about the current issues our NJ legislators are working on to help businesses and residents. Time will be set aside for networking and Q & A.

Includes full buffet breakfast

$20 members; $30 general admission. Preregistration ends on 11/20 at 2 pm.Limited seating. Additional cost at the door.

Open to the general public!

This program is sponsored by the GWACC Legislative Committee

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/plainfield/sections/government/articles/bramnick-holds-q-and-a-advises-cranford-residents-9

TRENTON, N.J. Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick (R-Union) released the following statement today after Gov. Christie signed the Stephen Komninos Law to strengthen protections for people with developmental disabilities. The legislation is named for the 22-year-old who died as a result of abuse and neglect in a local group home for individuals with developmental disabilities:

No one, especially the vulnerable, should be subjected to the abusive treatment this young man endured. This law will strengthen protections for people with developmental disabilities by requiring more state oversight and transparency.

Bramnick Endorsed by non-partisan NEW JOBS PAC for his work to create jobs in New Jersey

WESTFIELD, N.J. NEW JOBS PAC has announced its endorsement of Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick for reelection in the 21st legislative district.

I am deeply honored to receive the endorsement of NEW JOBS PAC, said Bramnick (R-Union). Only by getting the government out of the way can we get the economy back on track and allow the private sector to create jobs. I look forward to working with NEW JOBS in the next year to create an environment where New Jersey businesses can thrive.

The non-partisan NEW JOBS PAC, New Jerseys largest business political action committee, promotes a pro-business climate in New Jersey by endorsing and supporting legislative candidates who actively support economic growth, the creation of private-sector jobs, and lowering the cost of doing business.

TRENTON, N.J. Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick said yesterdays announcement that Democrat and Republican leaders in the Assembly and Senate are joining together with the governor to attract Amazon to New Jersey demonstrates that when all the leaders in government work together the state benefits.

Joint efforts on both sides of the aisle are extremely important to the success of government, said Bramnick (R-Union). Our united effort on Amazon is an example of government at its best. We are working together to help provide the shot in the arm our economy needs.

That is why I previously introduced a bill requiring quarterly meetings with the four legislative leaders and the governor, Bramnick continued. Corporations are required to hold board of director meetings. The state should also be required to report to the people. I encourage the public to contact their representatives urging them to support the legislation.

Bramnicks bill (A3691) specifically calls for the Senate president and minority leader and the Assembly speaker and minority leader to meet with the governor at least once a quarter of each calendar year to discuss the state of the state, pending legislation, ideas for legislation, public policy issues, and any matter of interest to residents. Following a private session, the meeting will be open to the public where people can ask questions. The leaders will also issue a joint statement highlighting their progress.

New Jersey is a natural fit for Amazon. We have the real-estate options and competitive incentives to build HQ2, and the talent to fill every job Amazon has to offer. This is a proposal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle can come together on, show unity and help provide the shot in the arm our economy needs. Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick

Legislative Leaders Pledge Bipartisan Commitment to Bring Amazons HQ2 Corporate Headquarters to New Jersey

WESTFIELD, N.J. The National Federation of Independent Business has announced its endorsement of Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick for reelection in the 21st legislative district.

I appreciate NFIBs support and endorsement, said Bramnick (R-Union). We need to get our economy back on track and the best way to do that is by getting the government out of the way so small businesses can create jobs. I look forward to working with NFIB next year to bring relief to small businesses across New Jersey and to create an environment where those businesses can thrive.

NFIB is the nations leading advocate for small business owners representing nearly 7,000 members in New Jersey. The group endorses candidates based on their voting record on key small-business issues identified by its members such as health care, taxes, labor and regulatory issues.

Assemblyman Bramnick joined with former Senator Bagger to support United Fund

https://www.insidernj.com/bramnick-americans-must-stand-together-racists/

All Americans must speak out against these racist groups in Charlottesville. We must stand together against hate and prejudice.

The speaker of the General Assembly rejected my request to vote on this important issue on procedural grounds. I will continue to fight to sustain home rule on housing issues as opposed to the courts determining our housing needs.

I am aggressively moving forward to protect towns and help mayors and councils stop court-mandated high-density housing by urging my colleagues to pass Assemblywoman Holly Schepisis legislative solution, said Bramnick (R-Union). With every passing day municipalities are incurring unrecoverable expense from these unnecessary lawsuits. This is a bi-partisan issue that has dire consequences. The legislature should take action now.

Read the original post:
Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick

Republican Party presidential primaries, 20162012February 1 June 7, 201620202,472 delegates to the Republican National Convention1,237 delegate votes needed to winFirst place by first-instance vote

Donald Trump (37)

Ted Cruz (11)

Uncommitted (4)

Marco Rubio (3)

John Kasich (1)

Donald Trump (35)

Ted Cruz (11)

Uncommitted (4)

Marco Rubio (3)

John Kasich (1)

Tie (2)

Donald Trump (46)

Ted Cruz (7)

Marco Rubio (2)

John Kasich (1)

The 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries and caucuses were a series of electoral contests taking place within all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories, occurring between February 1 and June 7. Sanctioned by the Republican Party, these elections are designed to select the 2,472 delegates to send to the Republican National Convention, who selected the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election, Donald Trump. The delegates also approved the party platform and vice-presidential nominee.

A total of 17 major candidates entered the race starting March 23, 2015, when Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was the first to formally announce his candidacy: he was followed by former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson of Florida, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, businesswoman Carly Fiorina of Virginia, former Governor Jim Gilmore of Virginia, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, outgoing Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Governor John Kasich of Ohio, former Governor George Pataki of New York, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, former Governor Rick Perry of Texas, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, businessman Donald Trump of New York and Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. This was the largest presidential primary field for any political party in American history.[2]

Prior to the Iowa caucuses on February 1, Perry, Walker, Jindal, Graham and Pataki withdrew due to low polling numbers. Despite leading many polls in Iowa, Donald Trump came in second to Cruz. Huckabee, Paul and Santorum then withdrew from the race, following poor performances in the caucuses. Following a sizable victory for Trump in the New Hampshire primary, Christie, Fiorina and Gilmore abandoned the race. Bush capitulated after scoring fourth place to Trump, Rubio and Cruz in South Carolina. On Super Tuesday, March 1, 2016, Rubio won his first contest in Minnesota, Cruz won Alaska, Oklahoma and his home state of Texas, while Trump won seven states. Failing to gain traction, Carson suspended[a] his campaign a few days later.[4] On March 15, 2016, nicknamed "Super Tuesday II", Kasich won his first contest in Ohio and Trump won five primaries including Florida. Rubio suspended his campaign after losing his home state,[5] but he retained a large share of his delegates for the national convention.[6]

From March 16, 2016, to May 3, 2016, only three candidates remained in the race: Trump, Cruz and Kasich. Cruz won most delegates in four Western contests and in Wisconsin, keeping a credible path to denying Trump the nomination on first ballot with 1,237 delegates. However, Trump scored landslide victories in New York and five North-Eastern states in April, before taking every delegate in the Indiana primary of May 3. Without any further chances of forcing a contested convention, Cruz suspended his campaign[7] and Trump was declared the presumptive Republican nominee by Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus on the evening of May 3.[8] Kasich dropped out the next day.[9] After winning the Washington primary and gaining support from unbound North Dakota delegates on May 26,[10] Trump passed the threshold of 1,237 delegates required to guarantee his nomination.[11]

Donald Trump chose Governor Mike Pence of Indiana to be his running mate, going on to defeat the Democratic ticket of Hillary Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine in the general election held on November 8, 2016.

17 major candidates were listed in major independent nationwide polls and filed as candidates with the Federal Election Commission. (See the main article for other notable candidates.) A total of 2,472 delegates went to the 2016 Republican National Convention and the winning candidate needed a simple majority of 1,237 votes to be the Republican nominee.

56 primary contests were conducted to choose 2,472 delegates. In 50 states and territories the delegates are allocated to candidates by popular vote either statewide or on the congressional district level and then elected according to state rules. In 6 states and territories, the first-instance popular vote did not allocate any delegates; they were elected later at local conventions and either bound to a candidate or uncommitted.[12] Most delegates are elected as bound delegates, meaning that they must vote for a specific candidate on the first ballot at the national convention. Some delegates attended the convention as unbound or uncommitted delegates, meaning that they are free to vote for anyone at the first ballot. These 130 uncommitted delegates include 18 unbound RNC delegates,[b] and 112 delegates that have been elected or allocated as uncommitted.[c] Uncommitted delegates can still express a preference for a candidate, although it is not binding. Among the 901 delegates elected for candidates who have later dropped out of the race, 155 are still bound to vote for their candidate on the first ballot[d] and 34 have been released[a] according to local rules of each state party. The voting obligations of those 712 delegates bound to the most recent withdrawn candidates (551 for Cruz and 161 for Kasich) have not yet been published. If no candidate is elected in the first round of voting, a progressively larger number of delegates are allowed to vote for a candidate of their choice. The voting rules on subsequent ballots are determined by individual states: most states release their delegates on the second round of voting, and only four states keep them bound on the third round and beyond.[14] Due to the convoluted election process and divergent definitions of delegate allegiance, even well-informed reporters had to make various assumptions to calculate and deliver estimated delegate tallies. Estimates that include unbound delegates are called "soft counts"; in contrast, the "hard count" includes only those delegates that are bound to vote for a specific candidate at the first ballot, irrespective of their personal preference. As the race progressed, conflicting estimates were reported by various media sources and election analysts, creating much commentary and speculation as to the potential path to nomination of leading candidates. The situation was only clarified after the last two opponents dropped out and Trump was declared the presumptive nominee on May 3.

This table shows how many bound delegates each candidate had won before suspending their campaign;[a] it does not show how many unbound delegates have pledged their support to any candidate during the primaries nor the expected result of the vote at the national convention. Although a state is considered won by a candidate if a plurality of the state's delegates are bound, RNC Rule 40(b)[15] requires that a candidate has to demonstrate support of a majority of delegates in eight states to be eligible as the nominee. Convention rules are based on delegate votes, not the popular vote. In the context of Republican primaries, the term "states" refers collectively to the fifty states, the District of Columbia and the five inhabited territories (altogether 56 delegations) as specified in RNC Rule 1(b).[16] In the following table, states and territories where the candidates have achieved a majority of bound delegates are marked in bold. States and territories where a candidate won a majority of delegates but not a majority of bound delegates are marked in italics.

(19712017)

[29]

[29]

Trump Cruz Kasich Rubio CarsonTie Uncommitted No results (Colorado and North Dakota did not hold primaries/caucuses.)

2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney lost the election to incumbent president Barack Obama. The Republican National Committee, believing that the long, drawn-out 2012 primary season had politically and personally damaged Romney, drafted plans to condense the 2016 primary season. As part of these plans, the 2016 Republican National Convention was scheduled for the relatively early date of July 1821, 2016,[30] the earliest since Republicans nominated Thomas Dewey in June 1948.[31][32] By comparison, the 2012 Republican National Convention was held August 2730 at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa, Florida.

With Kasich's announcement to enter the race on July 21, 2015, the field reached 16 candidates,[33] officially becoming the largest presidential field in the history of the Republican Party, surpassing the 1948 primaries. With Gilmore's announcement to enter the race for a second time on July 30, 2015,[34] the field reached 17 candidates, becoming the largest presidential field in American history, surpassing the 16 candidates in the Democratic Party presidential primaries of both 1972 and 1976.[35][36]

In mid-December 2014, Bush, widely seen as a possible frontrunner for the nomination due to his relatively moderate stances, record as governor of a crucial swing state, name recognition and access to high-paying donors, was the first candidate to form a political action committee (PAC) and exploratory committee.[37] Many other candidates followed suit. The first candidate to declare his candidacy was Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who was popular among grassroots conservatives due to his association with the Tea Party movement.[38][39]

The 2016 candidates originated in several Republican Party tendencies, with the grassroots conservatives represented by Cruz and Carson, the Christian right represented by Huckabee and Santorum, and the moderates, or establishment, represented by Bush and Christie, among others. In addition, some candidates were seen as appealing to both conservatives and moderates, such as Kasich, Jindal, Walker, Rubio and Paul. Two notable candidates from the previous primaries in 2012 returned for a second consecutive run in 2016: Santorum and Perry. Lastly, there were candidates with minimal to no political experienceCarson, Trump and Fiorina, who touted their lack of political experience as a positive while others criticized it as making them unqualified for the office.[40][41][42]

The field was noted for its diversity and was even called the most diverse presidential field in American history. This included two Latinos (Cruz and Rubio), a woman (Fiorina), an Indian-American (Jindal) and an African-American (Carson). Five were the sons of immigrants: Cruz (Cuban father), Jindal (Indian parents), Rubio (Cuban parents), Santorum (Italian father) and Trump (Scottish mother).[43][44][45][46]

Widely viewed as a very open contest with no clear front-runner, potential candidates fluctuated in the polls for an extended period from late 2012 to the end of 2015. In the year prior to the election season, a total of 17 major candidates campaigned for the nomination, thus making it the single largest presidential primary field in American history.[2] However, by the time the primary season started in early 2016, three candidates had clearly emerged ahead of the rest of the field: Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and New York businessman Donald Trump. Trump maintained wide poll leads throughout 2015 and into 2016, primarily due to his brash and unapologetic style of speaking and campaigning, emphasizing a disregard for political correctness, as well as populist and nativist policies, earning him the support of working-class voters and voters without a college education, among other demographics.[47][48][49] However, this same brash attitude and polarizing policy stances generated numerous controversies in the media,[50] and many of the other candidates sought to become the "anti-Trump" candidate by condemning his rhetoric and more radical policies. This gave rise to Senators Cruz and Rubio, who both emphasized their youth in comparison to most other candidates, as well as possible appeals to Hispanic voters, despite both being at different ends of the Republican political spectrum; Cruz was backed by his origins in the Tea Party movement and support among Evangelicals, while Rubio was seen by many as having broad appeal to both the conservative grassroots and the moderate establishment factions of the GOP, while also risking criticism from both sides.[42][51][52] Additionally, Ohio governor John Kasich, a moderate Republican, remained in the race for an extended period of time, despite widely being viewed as having little to no chance to win the nomination.[53]

Despite Trump's lead in most national polls, the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses were won by Cruz, due to his support among grassroots conservatives. However, Trump rebounded with strong wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. On Super Tuesday, Trump expanded his lead by winning seven of the eleven states, while the Cruz campaign gained new energy with victories in Alaska, Oklahoma, and the significant stronghold of Cruzs home state Texas. Despite initially never winning a state, Rubio maintained significant momentum with narrow finishes in Iowa (third place), South Carolina (second place), and Nevada (second place), before finally claiming victory in Minnesota on Super Tuesday.

Between Super Tuesday and the beginning of the "winner-take-all" primaries, Cruz stayed nearly even with Trump, winning four states to Trumps five, while Rubio won several smaller contests such as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. In the first round of winner-take-all contests on March 15, Trump greatly expanded his lead by winning five of the six contests that day. After a significant loss to Trump in his home state of Florida, Rubio suspended[a] his campaign that same day. Meanwhile, Kasich finally gained some momentum by winning his home state of Ohio.

As the primary season entered the spring, the mostly-consolidated field resulted in a closing of the gap between Trump and Cruz, with Trump sweeping the South, the Northeast, and parts of the Midwest, while Cruz performed strongly in the West and scored a surprise victory in Maine. Kasich, unable to win any other states besides Ohio, remained far behind in a distant third. After Cruzs upset win in Wisconsin, speculation began to arise that the convention would be a brokered one in which the establishment would choose Kasich or someone else, since both Trump and Cruz were not viewed favorably by the establishment.[54][55]

As April came to a close and Trump won a resounding victory in his home state of New York, both Cruz and Kasich were mathematically eliminated from winning the nomination without a brokered convention. Both men then formed an alliance to block Trump from winning the nomination, ahead of the "Acela primaries" of five Northeastern states on April 26.[56] Subsequently, Trump swept all five states and greatly increased his delegate lead. In a final push to block Trumps path to the nomination, Cruz announced that one of the former candidates for the nomination, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, would be his running mate if he was the nominee.[57] Nevertheless, after Trump won the Indiana primary on May 3, Cruz suspended his campaign,[7] subsequently leading to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus announcing Trump as the presumptive nominee.[58] Kasich announced the suspension of his campaign the next day, leaving Trump as the only candidate left in the race. Trump then went on to win all of the remaining primaries, sweeping the remainder of the West, Midwest and the entirety of the West Coast. With his victories in New Jersey and the remaining final states on June 7, not only did Trump officially surpass the necessary number of bound delegates, but also broke the old record of 12,034,676 (2000)[59] for the highest number of popular votes ever received by the winner of the Republican presidential primaries, with over 14 million votes.[17]

After Romney's unsuccessful 2012 campaign, the potential 2016 field was left without a clear future nominee, similar to that of 2008. Different speculations began rising from all sides of the right-leaning political spectrum as to who would make the best possible nominee: One faction of candidates included young freshmen senators, some with alliances to the Tea Party movement, such as Cruz, Paul, and Rubio, who in particular was the focus of attention immediately following 2012. In most national polls from late-2012 to mid-2013, Rubio was leading due to being young, articulate, having a broad appeal among conservatives and moderates and also for his Latino heritage and continued efforts on immigration reform, which many viewed as possible tools to draw Hispanic voters to the GOP.[60][61][62]

However, another narrative for the nomination, similar to that which drove Romney's 2012 campaign, was that the nominee needed to be a governor in a traditionally Democratic or swing state, with a proven record that would stand as proof that such a governor could be president as well. The possible candidates that fit this criteria included Bush, Gilmore, Kasich, Pataki, Walker and Christie, who in particular had been rising in popularity due to his loud and blunt manner of speaking at public events, championed by some as challenging conventional political rhetoric.[63][64][65] With his record as governor of New Jersey, a heavily Democratic state, factored in, Christie overtook Rubio in the polls from mid-2013 up until early 2014, when the "Bridgegate" scandal was first revealed and started to damage Christie's reputation and poll standing.[66] Although he was later cleared of personal responsibility in the subsequent investigation, Christie never regained frontrunner status.[67]

After Christie's fall in the polls, the polls fluctuated from January to November 2014; candidates who often performed well included Paul, Wisconsin congressman and 2012 vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan (the eventual House Speaker) and former candidates such as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and then-governor of Texas Rick Perry, further reflecting the uncertainty of the upcoming race for the nomination.[68][69]

In April 2014, Robert Costa and Philip Rucker of The Washington Post reported that the period of networking and relationship-building that they dubbed the "credentials caucus" had begun, with prospective candidates "quietly studying up on issues and cultivating ties to pundits and luminaries from previous administrations".[70]

Though Bush often polled in the low double digits, he was considered a prominent candidate due to his high fundraising ability, record as governor of Florida (a crucial swing state) and apparent electability.[71][72] By November 2014, Bush had finally solidified his lead in the polls.[73][74] Around this time there were talks of the possibility of Romney making a third run for the presidency. During this period from November 2014 until late January 2015, the speculation fueled Romney's rise in many national polls as well, challenging Bush.[75] Although Romney admitted he was entertaining the idea after initially declining, he ultimately reaffirmed his decision not to run on January 30, 2015.[76]

However, by the end of February, another challenger rose to match Bush in the polls: Walker, who often touted his record as governor in a traditionally Democratic state, particularly noting his victory in a recall election in 2012 (the first governor in American history to do so), combined with his reelection in 2014. Walker and Bush balanced out in the polls from late February until about mid-June, at which point Trump entered the race.[77] Walker's challenge to Bush also allowed other candidates to briefly resurge in some polls from late April up until mid-June, including former top performers Rubio, Paul and Huckabee, in addition to several newcomers to the top tier of polling, including Cruz and Carson.[68][69]

Shortly after Trump announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015, many pundits noted his uniquely outspoken nature, blunt language and rhetoric, often directly contradicting traditional political candidates. This style was seen as resonating strongly with potential Republican primary voters and Trump began to rise in the polls.[78] After a few weeks of briefly matching Bush, Trump surged into first place in all major national polls by mid-July,[79] which he continued to lead consistently until November. Trump also polled well in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, often leading or coming in second in those states.

With the surge of Trump, a man who had never held political office, the general focus began to shift over to other non-politician candidates, commonly known as "outsiders" and the other two outsiders in the field quickly rose in the polls as well in the wake of the first two debates: Carson, who rose into second place after a well-received performance in the first debate and Fiorina, who rose into the top three after her performance in the second debate.[80][81][82] The rising popularity of non-politician outsiders shocked many political analysts, and fueled a new conversation about how those with no political experience or prior runs for office could appeal more to potential primary voters than career politicians and what it means for the future of the Republican party and American politics in general.[83][84][85][86] Trump used ideas of populism to persuade the average American throughout the election process.[87] In mid-September, the first two major candidates dropped out of the race. Perry suspended his campaign on September 11, 2015, citing his failure to qualify for the primetime debates, his subsequent failure to raise a significant amount of money and his indictment as reasons.[88][89] Ten days later, on September 21, 2015, Walker suspended his campaign mainly due to his own poll numbers dropping after two lackluster debate performances.[90]

By the end of September, most polling averages indicated that the field was finally stabilizing in terms of public opinion and six candidates in particular were gaining traction and pulling away from the rest of the field by considerable margins. Polling averages indicated the top six as Trump, Carson, Rubio, Fiorina, Bush and Cruz.[91] Trump and Carson were consistently first and second, respectively, while Fiorina was initially in third before being surpassed by Rubio and Bush and Cruz subsequently remained in fifth and sixth, respectively.[92][93][94] The other candidates who had been in the top ten of pollingChristie, Huckabee, Paul and Kasichall leveled out at roughly 3% or less, while the five remaining candidates outside the top tenSantorum, Jindal, Pataki, Graham and Gilmorewere consistently polling below 1%. By the third debate in late October, Bush and Fiorina's numbers were also beginning to fade, while Cruz was on the rise and began coming in fourth by most poll averages.[91] The third debate only solidified these numbers: Bush and Fiorina remained in low digits as both were considered lackluster, while Cruz was widely held as the winner and rose even further.[95][96] Throughout this period, both Trump and Carson had pulled well ahead of the rest of the field and with Trump often registering in the low 30s and high 20s and Carson in the low 20s, the two of them combined often made up well over 50% of the electorate in a vast majority of national polls.[91] Later in October and in early November, Carson began to match even with Trump by most polling averages, rising into the mid 20s and often finishing either just behind or just ahead of Trump.[97][98]

By October, with the polls reflecting a field that seemed to be stabilizing, most commentators began to claim that the field had already established who the final four candidatesthose who were in the race for the long-term and had the best chance of actually becoming the nomineewould be.[100] The four were listed as being Trump, Carson, Rubio, and Cruz: Trump and Carson for their appeal as outsiders, as well as their opposite personalities- with Trump's blunt nature and tough foreign policy stances, against Carson's soft-spoken nature and personal favorabilityRubio for his appeal to Hispanics and his stance on such issues as immigration reform, combined with strong debate performances and significant donor backing and Cruz for his appeal to Tea Party and Christian Conservative voters, which was seen as possibly having a strong impact in the southern states.[100][101][102][103] On November 17, 2015, Jindal became the third major Republican candidate to drop out.[104] The November 2015 Paris attacks, which killed 130 people days before Jindal dropped out, were widely seen as having a significant impact on the 2016 presidential race, particularly on the Republican side.[105] The attacks were seen as boosting the campaigns of those with tough stances on immigration like Trump and Cruz, as well as the foreign policy hawks like Rubio.[106][107] Possibly as a result, Carsonwho had previously been perceived as uninformed and relatively inarticulate on foreign policybegan to suffer in the polls, with Trump once again solidifying a double-digit lead over everyone else, while Rubio and Cruz began to steadily rise as Carson's numbers declined.[91][108]

By December, Cruz had overtaken Carson by solidifying a base of support among Christian conservatives and averaged national polling of 18%, second only to Trump.[109] The non-interventionist Paul still failed to make traction at this juncture, while Carson fell down to about 10%, roughly even with Rubio.[91] On December 15, 2015, there was another presidential debate, which saw no major changes in the perceptions of the candidates. On December 21, 2015, the same day as the deadline to withdraw from the ballot in his home state of South Carolina, Graham suspended his campaign. Eight days later, on December 29, Pataki, who was struggling to poll above the margin of error, suspended his campaign as well.[110]

2016 dawned with the several-month-long truce between Trump and Cruz being broken.[111] Cruz accused Trump of not being a consistent conservative or an ethical businessman, while Trump questioned the Canadian-born Cruz's constitutional eligibility to be presidentcandidates have to be natural-born U.S. citizens to be eligible to be presidentwhile noting Cruz's past calls for immigration reform.[112][113] This occurred as Trump and Cruz were vying for supremacy at the top of Iowa polls, in addition to both being the top two candidates in all national polls, ahead of the rest of the field by significant margins.[114][115] In the closing weeks before Iowa, Trump and Cruz ran dueling television commercials, each attacking the other's record.[116] Meanwhile, there was conflict between "establishment" candidates Rubio, Christie, Bush and Kasich, largely due to a media-reinforced belief that only a single establishment candidate could remain in the race past the early primaries. The establishment candidates staked their bids on strong showings in New Hampshire and both Christie and Kasich saw upticks in their polling in the weeks before the primary.[117][118] Both the Trump-Cruz conflict and the squabbling between establishment candidates was evident at the Republican debate on January 14. The Republican debate of January 28, devoid of Trump due to priorities and conflicts with moderator Megyn Kelly after the debate in August, was the candidates' last shot at honing their message before the Iowa caucuses. Immigration and foreign policy featured prominently in this debate and many candidates used the opportunity of a "Trump-less debate" to criticize the second-place Cruz, who was also being heavily criticized by prominent Republican leaders in the weeks before Iowa.[119][120]

Pledged:82 Unpledged:0

Pledged:17 Unpledged:0

Pledged:16 Unpledged:0

Pledged:6 Unpledged:0

Pledged:5 Unpledged:0

Pledged:4 Unpledged:0

Pledged:0 Unpledged:0

Pledged:0 Unpledged:0

Pledged:1 Unpledged:0

Pledged:1 Unpledged:0

Pledged:1 Unpledged:0

Pledged:0 Unpledged:0

Pledged:133 Unpledged:0

Delegates won:7

Delegates won:8

Delegates won:7

Delegates won:1

Delegates won:3

Delegates won:1

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:1

Delegates won:1

Delegates won:1

Delegates won: 0

Proportional primary

Delegates won:11

Delegates won:3

Delegates won:2

Delegates won:4

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:3

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:0

Winner-take-all primary

Delegates won:50

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:0

Delegates won:0

Proportional caucus

Delegates won:14

Delegates won:6

Excerpt from:
Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016 - Wikipedia