We will probably never know. But isn’t Donald Trump the first to be surprised by his undisputed victory in his third bid for the presidential election? Pariah in chief after the assault launched by his supporters on January 6, 2021 against the Capitol, the tycoon achieved an improbable return, plagued by traps, long surrounded by a handful of loyal advisors and his clan.
At the beginning of 2021, Donald Trump was a man of the past. He continued to spread lies about election fraud and refused to acknowledge his defeat. He criticized the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, for which he had, however, laid the foundations through an agreement with the Taliban. He saw no merit in the massive legislative plans passed by the Biden administration in Congress. Trump took the Supreme Court’s decision to end federal abortion rights in June 2022 as a personal victory, but his side paid the price in the midterm elections five months later. The announced red wave was a collapse, despite the conquest of the House of Representatives. Several extremist candidates, dubbed by Donald Trump, bit the dust. Without waiting, the former president immediately announced his new candidacy for the presidential elections.
It was entirely set up for a new confrontation, a revenge against Joe Biden. An assassination attempt, from which he escaped on July 13 in Pennsylvania, seemed to assure him a form of invincibility. But the entry on the scene of Kamala Harris, a few days later, caused a sharp respite for Donald Trump, who had difficulty finding the appropriate formulas and angles of attack against this new adversary. Trump’s campaign once again became a one-man show, often erratic, without a clear strategy, although his running mate, Senator JD Vance (Ohio), ardently supported him, traveling through the crucial states.
Behind the scenes, the campaign team, led by veterans Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, controlled as much as they could after taking full control of the Republican National Committee earlier this year. This team convinced the magnate to promote early voting procedures, in which the Republicans had a decisive disadvantage. He also sought to distance himself from the collective programmatic document, Project 2025, organized by the Heritage Foundation think tank. What angered Donald Trump most was not the inflammatory and reactionary content, but the suggestion that he would set other people’s ideas to music.
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