Vermont Speech: Former GOP strategist Stuart Stevens on presidential election

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As the 2024 presidential campaign came to a thrilling conclusion on November 5, two major candidates delivered their closing statements. Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, where she promised to be a unifier and cast Trump as a “little bully” who wants Americans to be “divided and afraid of each other.”

Trump made his final stand at a six-hour rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday in which a comedian who described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” mocked Jews, Hispanics, Blacks and Palestinians. The New York Times described it this way: “a closing carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.“Many observers and historians have noted that Trump’s rally evoked memories of the pro-Nazi rally held at Madison Square Garden in 1939 and captured in an Oscar-nominated film,”A Night in the Garden.”

The 2024 presidential race is still very close. But longtime campaign strategist Stuart Stevens is confident in the outcome.

“I think Harris will win easily. I don’t think it will be very close,” Stevens said.

“It was the most stable race I can remember. 47% of the country is either MAGA or open to MAGA, and 53% is not. So the goal, the mission, the challenge of the Harris campaign is to get as much of that 53% as possible and vote.” “So we’re waking up to a world where our Senator Bernie Sanders and my old friend Liz Cheney are on the same side.”

Stevens was a top advisor to five Republican presidential campaigns, including Mitt Romney, George W. Bush and John McCain, and served as an advisor to dozens of GOP campaigns for governor, Congress and the U.S. Senate.

Stuart Stevens now claims that the Republican Party has become an authoritarian movement. Vanity Fair recently described him as: “The famous campaign cowboy who left the GOP to take shots at Trump.He has written several best-selling books about his political transformation; these include his most recent book, “The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driven Our Democracy into Autocracy.”

Stuart Stevens is now a senior consultant. Lincoln ProjectHe is working to defeat Trump in the 2024 elections. He grew up in Mississippi but lived in Stowe for many years.

Stevens pointed out that the early voting rate, especially for women, broke a record. “What’s remarkable about the early voting is that women voted 10% more than men… (and Harris) wins the women by 14 points… Even I can do that math,” he said.

“When this race is over, it will be seen as the way American women speak,” Stevens said.

What happens if Trump loses?

“Trump will never compromise,” Stevens said. “They will try to get the House of Representatives to disapprove it. “I think the period from election night to January 20 will be the most dangerous period in America since the Civil War.”

Stevens predicts that Trump will quickly announce that he is running for president again if he loses. “No question. That’s all he does. It’s his job. He won’t quit his job.”

Stevens regrets: “Trump didn’t hijack the (Republican) party. He revealed this. The reason why Trump is popular in the Republican Party is because he is who the Republicans want.” Even if Trump loses, “this will not be the end of Trumpism.”

Stevens stated that he was not optimistic about the Republican Party and said, “But I am quite optimistic about America. “I don’t think that’s the situation in the country.”