The presidential race was not unpredictable, as the now once again discredited polls swore to us.

The Republicans had made incredible gains in voter registrations since 2020, when President Trump had lost the Electoral College by only a few thousand strategically placed votes.

Republicans began to master the transition to non-Election Day balloting — first engineered by the left in 2020 under the pretext of Covid.

They not only vastly exceeded their early/mail-in voting totals of 2020, but by Election Day, they often outpaced Democrats.

For months, it was widely reported, albeit grudgingly, that there were large defections in Hispanic and African American voters from Vice President Harris.

The betting odds over the last three weeks usually favored Trump.

Ms. Harris simply could not run on anything she had so emphatically promoted in the past — given these left-wing, unpopular, and failed policies had no majority support.

So, the chameleon Ms. Harris renounced her prior 30 years of earlier radical advocacy that, along with her race and gender, had forced President Biden in 2020 to select her as vice president.

There was no way Ms. Harris could still support banning fracking, defunding police, opposing border security and the wall, or calling for large-scale amnesties and an end to the border patrol.

Nor could Ms. Harris still promote racial reparations, ending private health care insurance, or advocating for higher income and capital gains taxes and a wealth tax.

Much less could Ms. Harris still boast of wanting mandatory “buyback” or confiscation of some semi-automatic weapons — including entering private homes to seize them.

So given all that, Ms. Harris simply flipped — and serially lied about who she was, renouncing her entire political career.

Indeed, Ms. Harris began to copycat Trump’s own positions. And so, she never convinced the electorate that she would not flip back to her earlier radicalism once elected or even in defeat finishing out her vice presidential term.

There were three damning realities that even if Ms. Harris had been a gifted politician and an adept speaker, she could never have changed.

One, Ms. Harris was preposterously running as a turn-the-page, new-generation candidate.

Yet why had she not sought to implement such a “new chapter” for the prior 45 months as an incumbent vice president, especially while in office during the campaign itself?

Voters knew the answer: The entire Biden-Harris tenure was a far left-wing utter disaster, one for which the radical Ms. Harris 1.0 had for three-plus years claimed co-ownership.

Two, why did Ms. Harris avoid all impromptu interviews and the press for most of the campaign — only to reverse course and seek out reporters when her polls eroded?

Did it hurt Ms. Harris more to avoid the press — or meet with them and thus confirm her inanity to millions of viewers and listeners?

Three, why did Ms. Harris serially lie to America that Mr. Biden was hale and vigorous — until hours before his senility prompted leftist donors and party insiders to force him off the ticket?

And why could she not declare her independence from the historically unpopular Mr. Biden?

Ms. Harris instead chose to terrify voters to vote against a demonized and “fascist” Trump rather than to vote for Ms. Harris and her make-believe agendas.

Only even in demonizing Trump, the maladroit Ms. Harris hit a wall.

By campaign’s end, Trump’s favorables were often higher than her own.

His prior four years as president polled higher than the current Biden-Harris train wreck.

Trump, the purported “racist,” won more Hispanic and Black voters than past “moderate” Republicans like Senators Dole, McCain, or Romney.

It was hard to damn Trump as a crazy fascist when iconic liberal figures, like Robert Kennedy or Jr. and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, were campaigning for him.

Trump had reinvented the Republican Party by substituting ecumenical, middle-class solidarity for polarizing racial tribalism. Elitist Democrats were left to cater to the interests of their well-off and very rich donors as well as the subsidized poor.

Finally, workaholic Trump campaigned nonstop for two years, won all the primaries, and was endorsed by his two chief primary rivals.

In contrast, the Harris “nomination” was the product of a coup that, in 48 hours, removed from the ticket an incumbent president, nullified the will of his 14 million primary voters, and coronated Ms. Harris, who had neither won nor ever entered a primary.

That late July forced abdication of Mr. Biden lent an air of illegitimacy to Ms. Harris’s candidacy, as well as truncating the time available to campaign.

Finally, Ms. Harris’s first major decision was to nominate as her vice president the buffoonish and inept Governor Walz. His radicalism, serial lying, and herky-jerky “weirdness” proved a force multiplier of her own mediocrity.

In contrast, the calm, empathetic, and astute Senator Vance eviscerated Mr. Walz in their sole debate and did the same to the press.

Add it all up — and Ms. Harris and her star-crossed candidacy were simply and rightly doomed.

Tribune Content Agency