The presidential race was not unpredictable, because the now as soon as once more discredited polls swore to us.
The Republicans had made large features in voter registrations since 2020, when Donald Trump had misplaced the Electoral School by only some thousand strategically positioned votes.
Republicans started to grasp the transition to non-Election Day balloting — first engineered by the left in 2020 below the pretext of COVID-19.
They not solely vastly exceeded their early/mail-in voting totals of 2020, however by Election Day, they typically outpaced Democrats.
For months, it was broadly reported, albeit grudgingly, that there have been giant defections in Hispanic and African American voters from Vice President Kamala Harris.
The betting odds during the last three weeks often favored Trump.
Harris merely couldn’t run on something she had so emphatically promoted prior to now — given these left-wing, unpopular and failed insurance policies had no majority assist.
So, the chameleon Harris renounced her prior 30 years of earlier radical advocacy that, alongside together with her race and gender, had compelled Joe Biden in 2020 to pick out her as vp.
There was no method Harris may nonetheless assist banning fracking, defunding police, opposing border safety and the wall, or calling for mass amnesties and an finish to the border patrol.
Nor may Harris nonetheless promote racial reparations, ending non-public well being care insurance coverage, or advocating for increased earnings and capital features taxes and a wealth tax.
A lot much less may Harris nonetheless boast of wanting necessary “buyback” or confiscation of some semi-automatic weapons — together with coming into non-public houses to grab them.
So given all that, Harris merely flipped — and serially lied about who she was, renouncing her whole political profession.
Certainly, Harris started to copycat Trump’s personal positions. And so, she by no means satisfied the voters that she wouldn’t flip again to her earlier radicalism as soon as elected and even in defeat ending out her vice presidential time period.
There have been three damning realities that even when Harris had been a gifted politician and an adept speaker, she may by no means have modified.
One, Harris was preposterously operating as a turn-the-page, new-generation candidate.
However why had she not sought to implement such a “new chapter” for the prior 45 months as an incumbent vp, particularly whereas in workplace through the marketing campaign itself?
Voters knew the reply: The whole Biden-Harris tenure was a far left-wing utter catastrophe, one for which the novel Harris 1.0 had for three-plus years claimed co-ownership.
Two, why did Harris keep away from all impromptu interviews and the media for many of the marketing campaign — solely to reverse course and hunt down reporters when her polls eroded?
Did it harm Harris extra to keep away from the media — or meet with them and thus affirm her inanity to hundreds of thousands of viewers and listeners?
Three, why did Harris serially misinform America that President Joe Biden was hale and vigorous — till hours earlier than his senility prompted leftist donors and social gathering insiders to drive him off the ticket?
And why may she not declare her independence from the traditionally unpopular Biden?
Harris as a substitute selected to terrify voters to vote in opposition to a demonized and “fascist” Trump fairly than to vote for Harris and her make-believe agendas.
However even in demonizing Trump, the maladroit Harris hit a wall.
By marketing campaign’s finish, Trump’s favorables had been typically increased than her personal.
His prior 4 years as president polled increased than the present Biden-Harris prepare wreck.
Trump, the purported “racist,” gained extra Hispanic and black voters than previous “moderate” Republicans like Bob Dole, John McCain or Mitt Romney.
It was laborious to rattling Trump as a loopy fascist when iconic liberal figures, like Robert Kennedy or Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, had been campaigning for him.
Trump had reinvented the Republican Get together by substituting ecumenical, middle-class solidarity for polarizing racial tribalism. Elitist Democrats had been left to cater to the pursuits of their well-off and really wealthy donors in addition to the sponsored poor.
Workaholic Trump campaigned nonstop for 2 years, gained all of the primaries, and was endorsed by his two chief major rivals.
In distinction, the Harris “nomination” was the product of a coup that, in 48 hours, faraway from the ticket an incumbent president, nullified the need of his 14 million major voters and coronated Harris, who had neither gained nor ever entered a major.
That late July compelled abdication of Biden lent an air of illegitimacy to Harris’s candidacy, in addition to truncating the time out there to marketing campaign.
Lastly, Harris’s first main resolution was to appoint as her vp the buffoonish and inept Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. His radicalism, serial mendacity and herky-jerky “weirdness” proved a drive multiplier of her personal mediocrity.
In distinction, the calm, empathetic and astute J.D. Vance eviscerated Walz of their sole debate and did the identical to the media.
Add all of it up — and Harris and her star-crossed candidacy had been merely and rightly doomed.
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Middle for American Greatness.
