Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore | Flickr
Aside from Trump himself and the American people, several individuals emerged as particularly big winners on election night when the former president secured a return ticket to the White House. There were some big losers as well who had a serious stake in Harris winning but came up short. Here’s a look at each camp.
WINNER: JD Vance
Just a few short years ago, JD Vance was a prominent Trump critic. Now he’s Trump’s vice president-elect and the heir apparent of Trump’s America First movement.
Vance was undoubtedly taking a risk by signing on to be Trump’s vice presidential pick – just as Trump was taking a risk by choosing him. A first term senator from Ohio, Vance was a relatively untested political commodity. But Trump’s confidence in Vance paid off big, with “the kid from Middletown” becoming a major asset for the campaign.
Of course, Vance’s first priority as vice president will be helping enact Trump’s agenda. But it’s impossible to ignore that Vance is now perfectly positioned to be the frontrunner to secure the Republican nomination for president in 2028, if he so chooses.
Volumes can, should, and likely will be written on how the corporate media sabotaged its own credibility in pursuit of its ceaseless crusade to “get Trump.” While 2016 and 2020 dashed the public’s confidence in the establishment press, 2024 revealed just how complete the collapse has been.
The media went all-out in the final weeks of the campaign to build up Kamala Harris into an almost mythical political savior, while continuing to demonize Trump as “literally Hitler” and a “threat to democracy.” But voters simply did not buy it.
In fact, the longer the media has continued its smear campaign against Trump, the more popular he has become, increasing his raw vote total from 2016 in both 2020 and 2024.
Some in the corporate media are now finally beginning to take a look in the mirror to save what is left of their reputations – but it may well be too little, too late.
WINNER: Trump Defenders
It has never been easy for public figures, whether in politics, media, or entertainment, to defend Trump. Doing so means becoming an outcast in elite circles, inviting harassment on yourself and your family, and even becoming a target of a politicized legal system.
This was especially true during the media firestorm after January 6. But those who saw through the manufactured left-wing outrage and understood that Trump was still the best chance for Republicans to win back the White House and stop the far-left agenda have now been vindicated in an enormous way. Figures like South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Senators Josh Hawley, Bill Hagerty, and Rick Scott, and Representatives Byron Donalds, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, and Jim Jordan, among others, have gained significant trust and credibility with the president-elect and his voters through their steadfast support of Trump and his agenda.
LOSER: Establishment Republicans
The hope for establishment Republicans after 2016 and especially 2020 was that the Trump phenomenon was just a flash in the pan – an establishment candidate would surely defeat Trump in the 2024 primary and the old guard would seize back control of the party.
Both the 2024 GOP primary and the general election shattered that fantasy, with Trump winning the nomination in commanding fashion and then becoming the first Republican in two decades to win the popular vote.
Republicans also won the House and Senate on the backs of candidates who closely aligned themselves with Trump, signaling that the America First revolution inside the GOP is only gaining momentum. Establishment Republicans still hold some influence in the party, but they are now clearly a dying breed.
WINNER: Elon Musk
Elon Musk, a former self-described Democrat and the world’s richest man, spent tens of millions helping get Trump elected this year. Among Trump’s top surrogates, perhaps none was more impactful – or had more to lose – than Musk.
Musk was taking a serious risk in backing Trump, both personally and professionally. The Biden administration was already harassing Musk’s companies in apparent political retribution for releasing “The Twitter Files,” which showed the administration’s collusion with Big Tech to silence free speech. Had Kamala Harris won, Musk could’ve faced an incoming administration with an axe to grind against the eccentric billionaire – and Democrats have shown they have no compunction about using the federal government to target their enemies.
The politically smart play for Musk, even if he personally backed Trump, would have been to stay neutral in this election. But because Musk believed so strongly that a Kamala Harris presidency would be dangerous for America’s future while Trump would set the country back on the right path, he threw all his weight behind the former president, even holding rallies for him in Pennsylvania in the final days of the race.
Now Musk has been appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) along with fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy – the new department tasked with addressing the rampant waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. Moreover, Musk has become a close advisor to Trump.
Elon Musk has proven himself as one of the great visionaries and business leaders of our time. Trump’s victory and the fact that Musk looks to remain a close confidante of the president-elect is a win for him and the American people.
LOSER: Barack Obama
Barack Obama’s political legacy was dashed with Trump’s victory in 2016. It was destroyed with Trump’s comeback in 2024.
Eight years ago, Obama hand-picked Hillary Clinton to succeed him, passing over his vice president, Joe Biden. This year, pundits constantly compared Harris to Obama, and Obama hit the campaign trail to lecture black men about why they must vote for Harris. Instead, Trump won a higher percentage of the black vote than any GOP presidential candidate in 48 years.
The greatest politicians build coalitions that maintain their electoral potency beyond one candidate or election cycle. After 2008 and especially 2012, liberals crooned about a “permanent Democrat majority” bolstered by blue-collar voters and people of color. Now, both of those groups are abandoning the Democrat Party in droves, and Republicans have won the White House eight out of the last 12 years.
WINNER: Joe Biden (sort of)
When Democrats unceremoniously forced Biden into an early retirement after propping him up for four years, the belief was that Kamala Harris would swoop in to save the day. She lost anyway.
To be sure, Biden appeared to be in a terminal political decline before his exit from the race, and it is likely that he would’ve lost to Trump by an even wider margin than Kamala Harris. But the speculation inside Washington is that Biden was forced out of the race by Democrat power brokers and wasn’t happy about it.
If that is indeed the case, Biden and his inner circle likely can’t help but feel a semblance of morbid vindication at Harris’s defeat. Whatever questions one has about discrepancies and suspect procedures in 2020, Joe Biden will go down in history as the only person to defeat Donald Trump in an election.
At the same time, it is Biden’s failures that ensured Trump’s return to the White House. Other than Trump himself, no single individual is more responsible for Trump’s comeback than Joe Biden. His legacy among Democrats will always be more defined by Trump’s comeback than Biden’s victory in 2020.
WINNER: Tulsi Gabbard & Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., were politically homeless when they made the leap to back Trump earlier this year. After being forced out of the Democrat Party for dissenting from left-wing orthodoxy, the path of least resistance would have been to continue as independents and not make an endorsement in this year’s race.
Instead, both backed Trump as fellow political outsiders, and have since been nominated to top posts in Trump’s second administration.
The developments over the next four years will undoubtedly reveal more winners and losers from Trump’s historic comeback. Ultimately, however, the most important winners are the voters themselves, who ignored the left-wing fearmongering and chose a leader committed to delivering for them.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
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