Donald Trump says he's only acting presidential 'because my wife told me to'

At a rally in Florida two days before the crucial vote, the Republican frontrunner entertains audience with rants and stand up comedy

These were his people and, after the tribulations of the past few days Donald Trump was in the mood for a love-in.

Standing before a crowd of thousands in an open-air amphitheater in the warm Florida night Mr Trump cooed and joked with his fans.

“I love you too,” he responded when someone shouted out. “It’s a guy, but I still love you.”

“What spirit! Young and beautiful, and great heart and great everything!” he flattered his audience.

It has been a roller coaster eight months since he launched his bid for the presidency, and now, just two days before Florida will all-but decide his fate, Mr Trump was taking stock.

His voice hoarse from constant use, he celebrated his own success, vindicated himself against the political experts who had said his rise was impossible, mocked his rivals.

“These pundits are not worth anything. One guy said I was just a clown. A clown? I build great business,” he said

“Now their saying, ‘how do we stop him?’ I am the biggest political story in the world today.”

Mr Trump has won 15 of the last 26 Republican primaries, leaving him far ahead of his rivals in the race to reach 1237 delegates.

On Tuesday he faces his greatest test: Florida and Ohio, two of America’s largest states, along with three others, are holding their winner-take-all primaries.

If he wins these elections, even his rivals confess, he will become the presidential nominee of a party horrified to have him at the helm.

Even whilst Republican officials and members of the centre right have expended money and political capital to stop him, the real estate mogul has been the beneficiary of mass populist support.

Mr Trump’s slogan to “Make America Great Again” has proven a powerful motivator, inspiring millions of Americans who have seen the country’s economic recessions steal away livelihoods that were once good.

For blue-collar workers, globalisation has helped move their jobs abroad.

The fear spawned by financial insecurity has contributed to strong anti-immigration current as people search for someone to blame.

The population of Florida is more than 23 percent Hispanic and 16 percent African American.

Republican presidential canddate Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Boca Raton, Florida  Photo: Getty Images

But at this gathering in the venue by a gently lapping lakeside in Boca Raton, the crowd was overwhelmingly white.

“Build that wall!!” they chanted in unison, voicing their support for Mr Trump’s policy to stop illegal immigrants (who he has referred to as “drug dealers” and “rapists”) from crossing into the United States.

“Oh we love that wall don't we?” Mr Trump called back.

Mr Trump has been accused of inciting violence with his hardline rhetoric and divisive tones.

This week he was forced to cancel a rally in Chicago after thousands of demonstrators, many of them Hispanics, infiltrated the hall where he was set to speak.

Mr Trump also cancelled a rally in Miami, which has a large Hispanic population, which was scheduled for Monday.

In Kansas, police used pepper spray on protestors at a Trump event.

The protests came just as Mr Trump had begun to moderate his tone. His performance in a recent debate had been decidedly restrained.

At the rally on Sunday though, Mr Trump said he had only been acting presidential "because my wife told me too."

"I liked it better the other way," he added.

A self-declared billionaire who enjoys flaunting his wealth (Mr Trump arrived at the event on Sunday night in a helicopter, circling overhead as the campaign announced the arrival of the “next president of the United States”) might not seem an obvious spokesman for the classes of the working poor.

As his political rivals highlighted last week, for all his talk about bringing jobs back to America, Mr Trump has continued to employ foreign labourers in his Mar-a-Lago luxury Florida resort.

As the Telegraph saw when browsing in his store in Trump Tower in New York, much of Mr Trump’s brand merchandise (including some of his ‘Make America Great Again’ campaign hats) is made in China or Bangladesh.

  Photo: Barcroft Media

When asked if this concerned them, many in the crowd shrugged.

They could be forgiving of hypocrisy they said, because Mr Trump is so persuasive on stage. His speeches are a far cry from that of a polished politician. He offers rambling streams of consciousness punctuated with moments of stand up comedy.

Giving a counter argument to critics who say Mr Trump is generating advertising his brand, rather than seriously running for president, he quipped: “I love you folks but I can think of places I'd rather be.”

Mr Trump has clever labelled his opponents with mocking catchphrases. The crowd laughed hard as he referred to Ted Cruz as “Lyin’ Ted” (“You gotta say it with an apostrophe.”)

“He comes here with a bible,” he said of his Republican presidential rival, who is running on an evangelical platform. “He puts the bible down and starts lying.”

In Florida, Mr Trump’s task is to beat “Little Marco” as he has taken to calling Marco Rubio, the state’s senator and presidential rival.

Mr Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has strong support among the state’s large Hispanic population, but he has failed to connect with voters in majority white, rural areas.

He is currently losing to Mr Trump by significant margins in almost all the polls.

Mr Rubio’s campaign aides have dismissed many of the statistics, pointing out that many agencies do not poll in Spanish, and in failing to do so they miss a large bloc of Hispanics who do not speak English but nonetheless are able to vote.

A poll published by the Washington Post with Univision, the large Hispanic television network showed Mr Trump leading Mr Rubio by a margin of only seven points last week.

“We are going to make America so great again. You are going to be proud of your country and so proud of your president,” Mr Trump told his audience. “But for that to happen you have to go and vote!”