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