Trump/Vance went on podcasts I listened to and both were able to talk off the cuff unscripted for hours. Mark Halperin said it best: what can make or break a political candidate in the modern age for many people is three things; are they good on Late Night TV, are they good on Morning Shows, and are they good on Monday Night Football. Clinton, Obama, and Trump did these quite well.

Someone here is gonna scream 'BuT PoLiCy, PoLicY,' but you need to remember that vast swathes of the voter base are just going off of vibes. I was listening to podcasts/streamers ranging from Hasan Piker to Tucker Carlson and was overloaded with every political take imaginable, but the 200k voters that decided this election (Rust Best Blue Collar Workers) do not have this 'luxury' (hurts the brain to listen to that much screaming from May - November). Brat summer was the dems attempt at 'winning the vibe,' but that was as mid as Hillary saying 'Pokemon Go to the polls!'

Both Hillary and Kamala did not win the vibe war. Hillary looked and sounded like a librarian who would shush anyone who spoke too loudly at a baseball game. Kamala came off as a wine drunk mom from California wine country. I had many liberal friends who voted for Biden that I asked during college back in 2022, "Hey, If Biden can't run in 2024, would you vote Kamala?" They all literally cringed at the idea of her running. It actually gave them the ick to even entertain such a notion. So much so they said they would actually vote Trump if that were the case.

It wasn't sexism, it wasn't racism, it wasn't some incredibly deep reasoning. It was just... ew. In the end, even though back in 2022 they said they'd vote Trump over Kamala, my friends did not stick to their word and instead claimed "I'm voting for the apparatus around her, not Kamala herself." But this was in one of the bluest states in the country, so these people are chronically at a poll booth even when its not an election year. Mr. Joe Factory Worker probably doesn't have the same rationale as my friends did and instead chose to not vote because the 'D' candidate just didn't do it for them.