One has to wonder about Trump. Here's his party affiliations.
For the record
Until 1987 Trump was a Democrat
From 1987-1999 he was a Republican
In 1999 Trump became an Independent
2000 to 2001 Trump was a member of the Reform Party
2001 to 2009 he was a Democrat again
2009 to 2011 he became a Republican
2011 to 2012 Trump was a registered Independent
2012 to present he became a Republican again.
I was amazed that the Republican Party would nominate an 8 time party switcher. Trump owes no party loyalty to them. He really doesn't have an political ideology to speak of. Unless one thinks "The Wall," is a political ideology. I agree, he is not conservative. I think we seen this during his campaign with his supporters calling him a populist, a nationalist, even a nativist, anything but a conservative. Outside of the democratic party, few republicans would even today tag Trump as a conservative.
I think Trump was successful within the GOP as a lot of its members thought when the Republicans gained control of the House in 2010 they would govern and give the GOP base everything they wanted. They became very angry when that didn't happen. Forget the senate remained in Democratic hands and Obama was still president. There really wasn't anything the GOP house could do to combat that. Anger gave rise to Trump and what I see as a failure to understand how our government works. Taking the House wasn't going to change much. Sure it might stop a lot of Obama's inititives, but they could get none of their own.
Yes, I know that most independents lean one way or the other. History shows that those who identify with either major party vote for their candidates approximately 90% of the time. Independents who lean vote for candidates of the party they lean to a bit above 70%. You do have approximately 15-20% of independents with no leans or what I call true or pure independents. This is why the Democrats can win the independent vote 57-39% in 2006 and 51-46 in 2008, but lose them to the Republicans 37-56 in 2010, 49-50% in 2012, 42-54 in 2014. Independents in 2016 voted for Trump over Hillary 46-42 with 12% voting third party, but in congressional elections independents voted Republican 51-46. 2018 was another reversal with independents going Democratic 54-42. This is the recent history of independents.
Democrats has received a high of 57% of the independent vote over this time period and a low of 37%. republicans a high of 56% and a low of 39%. Independents are also far more likely to vote third party if they don't like the candidates or the major parties. We seen this in 2016 where only 3% of democrats voted third party, 4% of Republicans while 12% of independents did. In fact 9 million voters refused to choose between Trump and Clinton. You could have more than that if the Democrats nominate the wrong candidate.