We’ve talked about the top 5 losers. Now let’s turn to the top 5 political winners of 2024.

Number one is obvious, and even the history books (once written) will eventually agree. We’re going to use the same definition as we did before: a “political winner” is someone whose political power or stature has been greatly increased because of their actions in 2024. Let’s get to it!

5) J.D. Vance
The vice president-elect ends 2024 having gone from junior senator from Ohio to one heartbeat away from the presidency. At age 40, in this era of geriatric politicians, Vance has been a welcome change on the national stage. Being chosen as Trump’s running mate was actually a low-risk, high-reward proposition for Vance – if he had lost, he still had four more years on his first term in the Senate. He successfully beat the “weird” label that Tim Walz and the left tried to stick on him by being utterly and absolutely relatable and normal. His debate performance solidified everyone’s expectation that he could think on his feet, but his entire interview with Joe Rogan went a long way toward changing everyone’s perception of him personally.

Speaking of relatable, this video that J.D. Vance put out on Christmas Eve of himself making biscuits with his daughter was just adorable.

Baking some Vance family biscuits with the world’s best three-year-old sous chef. Merry Christmas everyone! pic.twitter.com/j5agMYJXGV

— JD Vance (@JDVance) December 25, 2024

Vance’s political star is on the rise, and it’s going to be so refreshing to have a “normal dad” vibe coming from this incoming administration.

4) Elon Musk
The current debate over H-1B visas aside, consider how much political influence Elon Musk now has. He could have been an Alex Soros, having politicians come kiss his ring in his penthouse and posing for pictures with him, proclaiming that he has power, money, and connections. He didn’t do that. Once he bought Twitter and declared it a bastion of free speech, Elon Musk has taken a pragmatic role toward government, seeing where it can be used for both good and evil. His support of Team Trump probably came in no small part because of the legal harassment that the Biden DOJ has been pushing on SpaceX, but once Elon was in, he was ALL in.
https://twitter.com/alexdatig/status/1842699317746049526
As part of DOGE, Elon Musk now has more political influence (though not actual authority) than he has ever had previously. What will he do with it? We shall see. But there is no doubt that he is one of the political winners this year.

3) Lara Trump
Yes, we all had concerns when Lara Trump became co-chair of the Republican National Committee. Obviously, it looked like nepotism and no one was really sure how qualified Lara Trump truly was. However, she proved the doubters wrong in spades. She was also willing to listen to the base and make moves that were obvious but unorthodox, like working with Scott Presler and his “get out the vote” efforts in Pennsylvania. And Presler gave Lara Trump all the credit.

Just wanted to take a moment to personally thank @LaraLeaTrump.

I reached out to the previous RNC Chairwoman for 304 days without a response.

When Lara Trump was elected as co-chair, she called me within her first week. Then, I was invited for the first time to meet with her… pic.twitter.com/pWAlE1SIit

— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) December 9, 2024

The full post reads:

Just wanted to take a moment to personally thank @LaraLeaTrump.

I reached out to the previous RNC Chairwoman for 304 days without a response.

When Lara Trump was elected as co-chair, she called me within her first week. Then, I was invited for the first time to meet with her at the RNC in DC.

I will never forget that Lara Trump gave the grassroots a seat at the table. She listened to us and welcomed outside groups into the Republican Party.

Then, during President Trump’s triumphant return to Butler — the site of the assassination attempt — she called me on stage to speak to 80,000 people.

Lara, you forever changed my life; you helped delivered the presidency for your father-in-law; and you helped save our country.

Thank you.

Lara Trump took the reins from perpetual loser Ronna McDaniel and delivered all seven swing states in the general election. There isn’t a much better definition of “political winner” than that. She’s also demonstrated a good bit of political savvy by opting out of consideration for the soon-to-be vacated Senate seat in Florida (which Marco Rubio will be giving up to become Secretary of State). Whatever Lara Trump decides to do next, she’s earned a great deal of political goodwill and influence within the Republican party.

2) The American People
We The People dodged two proverbial bullets this election season. First, the senility of Joe Biden was exposed for all to see on the debate stage. The cries from Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) about “cheap fakes” suddenly disappeared, and the admission that Joe Biden has been a meat puppet president for his entire administration has been painful for the press to admit. Despite Grandpa Brandon’s insistence that he’s been “scandal free,” we have all seen the truth, and the truth is that covering up his cognitive decline is going to be one of the biggest presidential scandals of the 21st century.

The second proverbial bullet was Kamala Harris. We knew that she was a bad candidate, but she did have an edge on Joe Biden – she at least was alive. What we didn’t realize, even though we saw her first presidential run fall apart, was just how much of an insecure dunce she really is. But the media was more than happy to do the heavy lifting and attempt to carry her across the finish line with friendly interviews and settings. Too bad for them, she couldn’t even do well there, either. But the polls remained tight, and the question of whether the pollsters were “herding,” so that no one was an outlier, was on the table. It turned out that the polls were off, and Trump won all seven swing states. As the admissions from the media regarding the border and homelessness begin, it’s clear just how fed up the “normies” had become with the Biden-Harris administration. The American People took the vote seriously, and wanted a course correction. Congratulations, everyone.

1) Donald Trump
We The People dodged proverbial bullets, but Donald Trump dodged REAL bullets. The biggest political comeback in American history was marked with assassination attempts and a candidate swap at the last minute, and yet Donald Trump prevailed, sweeping the swing states and taking both the popular vote and the electoral college. No one alive has ever witnessed anything like this, as the second term of Grover Cleveland (the only other president with non-consecutive terms) was 130 years ago. Trump’s comeback wasn’t just huge, it was historic, and had some of the best and funniest political trolling that the country has ever seen. Clearly, Donald Trump is the biggest political winner of 2024. Now, he has the task of delivering wins for the American people.

Is this top 5 list of winners what you expected? Who was missed that you think deserves a spot? Let me know in the comments.

Featured image via Tumisu on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license