How Trump became a presidential contender despite a toxic campaign

His ascent to becoming one of only two people in line to become the 45th president of the United States and the leader of the free world began through a public image makeover spawned by him starring in the US version of the reality series The Apprentice.

While for much of the 1980s, Donald Trump’s name had become a symbol for wealth and luxury with a career famed for building office towers, hotels, casinos, golf courses, and even the purchase of a beauty pageant.

After the collapse of his business empire in the 1990s, his reputation was in need of repair and The Apprentice turned him into the television celebrity that would help him launch his attempt to get to the White House.

While not a career politician, Trump the fourth of five children, announced his candidacy for president of the United States on the Republican ticket last year. His political aspirations were initially dismissed as a lark or a joke.

It all started in June 2015, when he announced his candidacy inside the lobby of the Trump Tower. The ensuing speech included a declaration of his net worth - $8.7 billion.

But he confounded the unbelievers when in a wave of political incorrectness, he became the party's nominee having won the most state primaries, caucuses, and delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention. Trump chose Indiana governor Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate.

Trump's campaign rallies have attracted large crowds, while strewn with public outrage providing the sort of drama that makes good television, and he rarely makes apologies for offence. The exception to that came after the October release of a 2005 video of Trump making lewd comments about women while talking with US television host Billy Bush on a bus.

In the embarrassing video, which threatened to derail Trump's ascent, he says "you can do anything" to women "when you're a star" and also brag about trying to grope and kiss women.

Other Republicans strongly criticised Mr Trump for the remarks and a series of women have since come forward accusing him of sexual assault.

While apologising, Trump also described the comments as "locker room talk" by way of mitigation.

His relationship with Scotland’s politicians had deteriorated after a series of tirades against a planned offshore wind farm not far from his championship links course in Aberdeenshire.

He had repeatedly accused Alex Salmond, the former first minister, of destroying Scotland with wind turbines and has waged a legal battle against the development.

So by the time Trump came to Scotland in June, his more inflammatory campaign speeches, while not causing him irreparable damage in the opinion polls, had made him even more notorious outside of the US.

In one of his more memorable utterances, he pledged to build a border wall separating Mexico from the United States and to make Mexico pay for it.

He had kicked off his presidential campaign with a warning about undocumented Mexican immigrants who are "rapists" and drug dealers. The line came with consequences for the multibillionaire businessman, costing him deals and sponsorships.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you,” Trump gestured toward members of the audience at his June 16 announcement speech from Trump Tower.

“They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

He declared Senator John McCain, a Vietnam War veteran who spent five years as a prisoner of war, was nobody’s hero.

And he wanted a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States who come from countries with a proven history of terrorism, at least until the United States has a level of vetting that can screen out potential terrorists.

“And we have to make sure that Muslims come in and report when they see something going on,” Trump said during the second Presidential debate.

He was heard repeating the often refuted story that thousands of Muslims were seen cheering the 9/11 attacks - even insisting that he saw television footage of the apparently non-existent celebration.

Arriving on the tarmac of Aberdeen airport in June, paying little heed to a record-breaking petition calling for him to be banned from the UK for "hate speech", he received a difficult reception as he conducted a tour of his two Scottish golf courses.

Michael Forbes and David Milne, who were in dispute with Trump over an alleged threat to compulsory purchase their homes to make way for a luxury golf resort when they refused to sell, put up flags in a show of solidarity with the people of Mexico.

Nicola Sturgeon turned do-wn an invitation to his event at his Turnberry golf resort on along with Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, Kezia Dugdale of Labour and Willie Rennie for the Scottish Lib Dems.

On policy issues, he has departed from the traditional Republican party focus on free trade, instead leading a wave of antitrade and has repeatedly expressed admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin and encouraged Russia to hack rival Hilary Clinton’s emails.

He has said the United States should have taken Iraq’s oil and promises that he would take oil from Daesh but has not provided details on how this would work.

His positions on alliances such as Nato and nuclear weapons also run strongly counter to Republican policies. In August, 50 senior Republican foreign policy experts wrote a public letter opposing Trump, saying that “we are convinced that he would be a dangerous president.”

He refused to release his taxes, and later boasted about using a loophole to dodge paying them saying the move was "smart" and insisted many of Mrs Clinton's donors had also taken "massive tax write-offs".

And the would-be leader of the free world also emerged as a Twitter warrior firing off 140-character messages into the small hours of the morning. He dismissed Fox News presenter Megyn Kelly as a “bimbo,” and once suggested former Texas governor Rick Perry should be “forced to take an IQ test” before joining the Grand Old Party presidential debates.

His detractors, including the Economist magazine, said that Trump represents a “post-truth” or “post-fact” environment, in which a politician need only say things that supporters feel should be true, with no reference to evidence.

His supporters, on the other hand applaud the fact he is different from most politicians, often viewing his lack of polish as a sign of authenticity.

While the negative headlines might have given undecided voters pause for thought, they also only served to confirm his support's belief that the press was out to get him.

Trump further played the anti-establishment card a few days before the polls opened when Trump accused the FBI of impropriety after it once again said that his presidential rival Clinton should not face criminal charges over her emails. Mrs Clinton used a private email server when she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 in the Obama administration.