The political earthquake of Donald Trump's stunning victory on Nov. 8, was greeted with surprised relief by most Republican elected officials.
It was a quirky victory based upon less than 85,000 votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania, while he was losing the overall popular vote by more than 200,000.
Recent polls have suggested that Donald Trump was pulling uncomfortably close to Hillary Clinton, prior to the first televised debate between them. His most significant appeal has been to represent a change in the status quo of governmental gridlock, and being opposed by a candidate little more popular than himself, despite his multitude of personal flaws. That momentum toward the Republicans seems to have been arrested by Trump's performance in that opening encounter, and his behaviour in the days that followed.
Pundits have suggested for months that the outcome of the U.S. presidential election would likely be determined by which candidate became the focus of the campaign. Given the unprecedented unpopularity of both major party candidates, the astute strategy is to make one's opponent the election story. If the electoral focus is upon Hillary Clinton, it would help Donald Trump, and if it is about Trump, that should assist Clinton.
This U.S. presidential election year was eminently winnable for the Republicans.
Indeed, if one follows the longer-than-six-decade pattern since the Eisenhower administration, with only one exception the Republican and Democratic parties have effectively alternated eight-year terms in power, making this the Republicans' turn.
One of the central themes of this U.S. election year is the widespread desire for change in the political system.
Public opinion polls suggest that some 70 per cent of Americans support this view, and it helps to explain the rise in the unconventional candidacies of both Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who tried to win the Democrats' presidential nomination.
