If you were on the edge of your seat on election night, wondering when some uncounted mail-in ballots might arrive to steal Donald Trump's win, you were not alone.
There are three good reasons that scenario did not happen, says Jody Hice, the president for Family Research Council Action.
“Number one, the legislators of the various states, that enacted laws, seem to have done a really good job," he told the "Washington Watch" program a day after Election Day.
A second reason, he said, was "boots on the ground" that were watching for potential problems all over the nation.
"We had tens, and tens, and tens of thousands of poll workers and poll watchers everywhere," said Hice, a former 10th District Georgia congressman.
“That makes a difference, when people are looking and people know they are being watched, the likelihood of shenanigans taking place drastically decreases,” Hice explained.
A third reason, related to the second reason, was a vigilant Republic National Committee ready to pounce when fraud allegations or voting questions surfaced.
One example happened in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Alerted by a social media post, RNC attorneys made a quick trip to court where they won a court order to extend voting hours for early voting there.
“The RNC certainly was well-prepared," Hice advised, citing his own conversation with an RNC official. That person, he said, described the work in seven swing states to resolve issues that arose.
So those election integrity issues, raised by Republicans four years ago and never forgotten, played a huge part of the Election Day success, Hice summarized.
Deace credits Trump for big gains
So, too, was Trump’s own remaking of the Republican Party, according to Blaze Media host Steve Deace.
In a post-election interview with American Family Radio, Deace said the former president turned president-elect won with messaging that clicked with black men and Hispanic men, who played critical roles in Trump’s success.
Exit polling by NBC News showed Trump getting 21% of the black male vote and 55% of the Latino male vote.
The Latino male vote was a jump of 19 points from Trump’s 36% in 2020. There were also Trump gains among Asian voters and Gen Z voters, too, The New York Post reported.
“He had the best finish ever with Hispanics by a Republican presidential candidate,” Deace said. “Trump and Vance are literally running on a platform of mass deportations, and they just broke the record for Hispanic voters."
If you can win those numbers with that message, Deace reasoned, that's probably the greatest evidence Trump is expanding the base of the Republican Party.
Reading political plays between timeouts
In the final hours leading to Tuesday, Deace drew on TV ads during Sunday football to form a prophetical viewpoint that soon played out.
While he watched the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, every ad that played during timeouts turned one of two ways. Either the ad praised Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for his fight against the Biden administration’s open borders and his efforts against gender ideology, mostly through opposing men in women’s sports, or the political ad bashed Sen. Cruz for his pro-life position.
“That was the closing pitch of both sides the weekend before the election, which told me there were no persuadable voters here. They were speaking to two diametrically opposite Americas,” Deace told show host Jenna Ellis.
That left Deace, who is known for his political savvy, to conclude neither side was picking up some imaginary force of undecided voters.
One side would have superior messaging to motivate its base, he reasoned, and that the swing states weren’t going to come down to the single-thousands of votes.
“I thought that the margins might be close, but one side then would pretty much have an overall trend line where it's clear that the energy is with them and their vision for the future, and that would carry forth in most, if not all the swing states. That's what ended up happening,” Deace said.
No longer your father's GOP
A key for Trump's win was his expanded base. He basically left the Republican Party in his wake, Deace said.
This was noted by his association with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Deace said. Partnerships with Elon Musk and Tusli Gabbard also support that theory.
It all adds up to Trump’s reshaping of the Republican Party, Deace said.
“If you go to the last time the GOP won the popular vote, there would have been a line of division between non-college-educated whites who would have supported Democrats. College-educated whites would have supported Republicans. Those people are now voting for Kamala, and that’s what’s changed.
“The reason she got slaughtered is Donald Trump won non-college-graduate whites by 10 points, and non-college-educated whites actually showed up 39-32 over college-educated whites. That’s the whole election right there,” Deace said.
