On the night of the election, a member of the Trump team called me about an hour after polls had begun to close to tell me they saw signs of a win. A few hours later, a friend close to the Harris team called to tell me senior members of the campaign had begun advising senior Democrats they saw no path forward for Kamala Harris. A few hours later, Donald Trump crossed the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes to, again, be the President-Elect of the United States.
On Halloween, despite some off-message moments at the end of the Trump campaign, I wrote, "Harris could easily win this election. It is tied. But her campaign never seems quite able to capture key moments and capitalize on them. Even with an American press corps doing everything it can to help her, Team Harris often seems unable to execute its strategy as competently as Team Trump. The press now tells us it could be a week or two before we know who has won. I am just not sure that will be the case." Indeed. It was always the economy, stupid.
The Harris campaign did not even make the best of a bad situation. Harris repeatedly refused to distance herself from President Joe Biden. She never found a decision he made that she disagreed with from the disastrous withdrawal out of Afghanistan to an overrun border. She picked Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate instead of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania presumably because the latter was Jewish. Not only did she lose Pennsylvania but she still managed to alienate Arab American voters and Jewish voters together. Not since the Romans invaded the Levant have Arabs and Jews reacted in kind to a leader. Harris and Walz even did worse in Minnesota than Biden and Harris did four years ago. Walz even lost his home county to Trump.
Walz was a uniquely bad pick. White progressives craved Pete Buttigieg. Walz was the next best thing. But Buttigieg never lied about his military service. Walz did. He lied about awards he had gotten. He lied about his time in China. He lied about little things. He lied about big things. The press corps insisted everyone focus on Trump's lies. Harris' first choice was only one of many bad choices. She avoided all but the most softball interviews until she did a "60 Minutes" interview that gave Republicans fodder. She became the first presidential candidate since Walter Mondale to avoid the Al Smith dinner in New York that raises money for Catholic Charities. Trump won the Catholic vote and Harris lost like Mondale.
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The Trump team's Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita ran a tight ship with an irascible and unpredictable captain. They should get an award for doing the impossible. Harris combined a Biden team and Obama team that hated each other and hated any American that did not share their worldview. Trump has many faults, but he is a salesman who must know his audience to make a sale. Harris and her team know only the cloistered bubble of progressive elites, which mostly includes mentally neurotic white women and their husbands, wealthy gay men, and celebrities. Trump campaigned at UFC fights. Harris' team kept running rumors Beyonce was coming, and when she finally did, she did not sing. The vice president, unburdened from what had been, became the living embodiment of the HBO series "Veep."
When it was all over, Trump not only won big but won broadly. He will go back to the White House with the broadest multiracial coalition any Republican has ever had. Through it all, Americans participated civilly. On Election Day, instead of firing bullets to change their government, they cast ballots. The day after, life returned to normal. Only the progressives who traded God for politics dressed in black to mourn. The God of all Creation smashed their idols before their eyes on live television as Americans rejected the atheist, mostly white, wealthy elite who think boys can become girls and Hispanic voters want more illegal immigrants.
Now, the hard part begins for Republicans -- governing. But at least they get the chance.
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