Umm, yeah. Specifically the campaign started as an attempt to raise his profile and status on The Apprentice because his ego couldn't stand that he was no longer the highest paid game show host on NBC (Gwen Stefani dethroned him on The Voice). That backfired because NBC wouldn't let him host and run a political campaign at the same time.
He then planned to start a further-right news network to take advantage of the dipshits in his base.
Those plans were crushed when he actually won, you only have to look at footage of him and Melanoma when he won for the "oh shit" expressions to confirm. Also, this is why he's so big into One America News (OAN), he expects to be able to join them if he's ever forced out of office.