Donald Trump can get away with murder.
Speaking before a crowd in Sioux Center, Iowa, on Saturday, Trump said his supporters are so loyal that there is virtually nothing he could do to fall out of their graces—including shooting someone.
“They say I have the most loyal people—did you ever see that?—where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” Trump said. “OK? It’s like incredible.”
The crowd responded with cheers and clapping, according to the Washington Post.
Trump’s comment strikes at the heart of the 2016 election’s downright strange nature. While many pundits wrote the real estate mogul off as a joke candidate—the Huffington Post put all Trump coverage in the Entertainment section for the first months of his campaign—he has led the Republican presidential pack almost nonstop since mid-July.
Trump currently maintains a nearly 16-point lead nationally and is leading in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to cast primary votes.
Many predicted Trump would lose his frontrunner status after he vowed to ban Muslims from entering the United States in early December, but his lead has only expanded since that time.
Photo via Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)
