MARK HALPERIN: Four people who helped drive Trump’s GOAT comeback

Every winning presidential campaign features a lot of GOATS (greatest of all time), while those on the losing side are ridiculed as old goats, grumpy goats, and scapegoats. The macro narrative gets set, with the victors hailed as geniuses who played a clever long game and came together with brilliant tactics and strategies to make it happen, while the vanquished get painted with a broad brush of incompetence, infighting, and failure.

While it is the candidates who matter most in determining who wins our quadrennial contests for the Oval Office, the advisers, staffers, and supporters are in fact an invaluable part of the strange organism that is a presidential effort.

Team Trump, led by campaign captains Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, and championed by such prominent backers such as Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is currently on an earned victory lap, lauded for the crafting and execution of a plan that led to a smashing success.

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Outside that spotlighted inner circle are scores of others who contributed mightily, from surrogates, to donors, to staffers, to state directors.

One could fill a book with fascinating profiles of these often unsung stars who played significant roles in the Trump-Vance triumph.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump is joined on stage by wife Melania and Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance and his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance, after he finished giving his acceptance speech on Day 4 of the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 18, 2024.  (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)

Based on conversations with a range of sources in and around Team Trump, here’s a starting look at four folks among the many women and men who, below the radar, helped drive Trump’s GOAT historic comeback:

1. James Blair, Trump campaign political director

Blair took charge of a budget that, while sizable, was smaller than that of the Harris campaign, and transformed it into a formidable turn-out-the-vote grassroots operation in the battleground states.  He also took on two complex tasks: building a system to reach and turn out low-propensity voters and using a new legal ruling that allowed the campaign to closely coordinate with well-funded but inexperienced outside groups for voter mobilization.  

Blair remained calm, cool, and analytical in the face of doubts from the media, the Democrats, and even his own party that he would succeed. 

Although there was some secret sauce in the political director’s jambalaya, he was, in fact, remarkably open about his strategy, notable during several pre-election long-form interviews in which he displayed the classic assured operative’s mix of humility and confidence.

2. Lee Zeldin, former New York congressman

After running a strong race for governor of the Empire State in 2022 and coming up just short, Zeldin took his newfound expertise in turning out those infrequent voters that Trump was counting on by heading the turnout operation of America First Works. It was a low-profile voter program (compared to those of Musk and Charlie Kirk) but one that nonetheless proved to be an effective get-out-the-vote operation based on rigorous metrics and grassroots focus. The group’s own data suggests that its efforts were remarkably efficient, turning out a very high percentage of the voters its workers targeted. 

Zeldin is that rare person who has both served in elective office and has the soul and vision of a top political operative. His determination and loyalty to Trump has landed him a position in the new administration as EPA administrator. 

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3. Walt Nauta, assistant to Donald Trump

After being caught up in Jack Smith’s investigation of the Mar-a-Lago documents case, Nauta stayed physically close and personally loyal to Trump, continuing to serve as a super valet, anticipating the former president’s needs, fulfilling requests, and providing nonstop practical and material comfort to the on-the-go candidate.  

The former chief petty officer from Guam has a demeanor similar to that of Trump sidekick Dan Scavino: a calming voice and subtle influence, always in the background but forever at hand, serving as a source of Pacific calm for a man who otherwise often leads a life of swirling chaos.

Former President Donald Trump drives a golf cart accompanied by aide Walt Nauta prior to the start of day three of the LIV Golf Invitational – Bedminster at Trump National Golf Club on August 13, 2023, in Bedminster, New Jersey. (Getty Images)

4. Hogan Gidley, campaign strategist

The supreme Trump loyalist and Southern gentleman, with a quick, sharp mind and gracious style, Gidley has been described as “assassin but not a viper” – and that is by his fans.  

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For years, he has ventured into hostile on-air territory such as MSNBC, CNN, and CBS News and emerged unrattled and typically victorious.  

During the last three months of the campaign, Gidley fluidly managed the assignment of working with Congressman Mike Johnson to engage the Speaker’s office in some significant legislative and PR fights and beef up defense of the president’s agenda and the president himself, all with a more pugnacious style than the usual mode of the soft-spoken Louisianan.  

Thanks in part to Gidley, Johnson ended the campaign smoothly integrated into the Trump machine, praised publicly by the POTUS-elect, invited to Mar-a-Lago, and prepped for coordinated teamwork when the new administration moves into the White House.