Americans woke up today with an extraordinary result in our national elections, a President-elect Donald Trump and the Republicans maintaining control of both houses of Congress. Ever since the primaries, Mitt Romney and the Republican elites have been sounding the alarm that Trump would be a drag on the ticket and the GOP would suffer a horrible defeat. According to them, Trump was unelectable.
It wasn’t supposed to be so. Donald Trump did not prepare his entire adult life for this office and has said things that would have disqualified any other candidate. He was anything but a polished politician and he did not fit into the mold of the Republican political class. He was a pure outsider.
Because he wasn’t a part of the establishment and because he was so brash at times, the party elites tried to derail his chances way back in the primaries. Mitt Romney attempted to thwart Trump’s nomination by spewing hatred against him and guaranteeing that Hillary would easily defeat him. As the former GOP leader, Romney became the loudest voice of the Never Trumpers.
The Never Trumpers were so afraid of Donald Trump that during the primaries, they even aligned themselves with Ted Cruz, whom they disliked, as a last minute hail marry. Trump, though, received more than the 1237 votes needed to clinch the nomination. This society of elitists was even conniving to oust Trump during the Republican Convention. They tried everything possible to prevent Donald Trump from the nomination, but failed.
Trump the Nominee
Once Trump became the nominee, the Never Trumpers were still planning for his demise, even if that meant a Hillary presidency. They selected a third party candidate, Evan McMullin, from Utah and were able to place him on the ballot in eleven states. The plan was simple, to dilute the Republican vote so Trump would lose. They were hoping for a similar result like In 1992 when Ross Perot captured enough of the vote to help Bill Clinton defeat George H.W. Bush.
Besides there unsuccessful plans, these tone-death Republicans were also lamenting to the media how Donald Trump was going to lose and that he would cause the rest of the down-ballot races to be defeated with him. They were predicting his loss to Hillary while, at the same time, they were trying everything in their power to defeat Trump themselves.
The Democrats, of course, used these Never Trumpers as proof that Donald was unelectable because even leaders in his own party were against him. Democrats from across the country, in Senate and House races, tried to turn their opponents who supported Trump’s candidacy into a political issue.
Many Republicans supported the Trump nomination while others distanced themselves from Trump; hoping that was the winning formula. The ones who distanced themselves, though, may have given themselves the decisive blow.
Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire pulled back her support for Trump on October 8th, after first supporting him. She may lose her Senate seat by a few hundred votes. Joe Heck of Nevada also distanced himself from Trump in October and he began dropping in the polls as a result. He finally lost his Senate race on Tuesday night.
Trump proved his critics and opponents from both sides of the aisle wrong. Trump wasn’t a liability and he had coattails. His enthusiastic supporters turned out in droves to vote for him on Election Day because they believed he would get things done for them in Washington. Wisely, they also elected enough other Republicans down-ballot to give him a green light with an undivided Congress. The unlikely outsider, Donald Trump, has the presidency, a Republican Senate and House, and the mandate to accomplish what he set out to do.
