It’s all up to him.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gestures after speaking at the National Guard Association of the United States’ 146th General Conference, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Less than 40 days ago, Democrats were ruefully referring to Kamala Harris as “Biden’s insurance policy,” meaning that a clearly deficient Joe Biden was being protected by aversion to his obvious successor – a woman of scant accomplishment plagued by a penchant for nonsensical verbal diarrhea.

That was then.

Today, less than six weeks later, Ms. Harris is the Democratic nominee for president, is fresh off the convention in Chicago at which she was heralded as the finest candidate since the transcendence of Barack Obama, and is gaining in the polls. She has a credible shot at becoming president without having been subjected to the crucible of the primary election process. She is the first politician of the modern era to become a major party nominee for president without having received even a single vote in a state primary election.

Since her anointment, Ms. Harris has been floating on a puffy cloud of media adoration. If she becomes president, she will have done so with less effort than any president in American history, except perhaps for George Washington, who was elected by acclamation.

Though we can’t foretell the future, it is still safe to say that the media will be at pains to avoid challenging Ms. Harris in any way that might damage her chances against Orange Man. At this writing, she has successfully avoided unscripted events, press conferences and one-on-one media interviews save for one pre-taped interview with CNN’s Dana Bash (to which she brought a wingman). As the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger explains it, Kamala Harris is “the biggest soap bubble American politics has ever seen.” Only contact with a hard surface can keep her from “floating into office.”

The media has no intention of popping the bubble. In the absence of the vetting that a properly functioning fourth estate is supposed to provide, the only thing standing between Kamala Harris and the Oval Office is Donald Trump.

That fact has Republicans and conservatives biting their nails.

It can be argued that the 2024 presidential election is Trump’s election to lose, and it can be simultaneously argued that Trump is quite capable of bringing that loss about.

It’s all up to him.

If Trump will stick to the issues and avoid the distractions that plagued his previous campaigns, he will defeat Kamala Harris.

If he will stay disciplined and avoid being baited into sophomoric social media rants, he will win.

If he will mount a fact-based challenge to Ms. Harris’s well documented hard-left policy positions (from which she is now attempting to distance herself), and properly connect her to a deeply unpopular Biden administration, he will win.

If he can show independent voters that he has gained strength from his successes and wisdom from his mistakes, he will win.

If Trump can get voters to recall what it was like buying groceries, filling the tank, and paying rent when he was president, he will win.

But, if Lord help us, we get the Donald Trump of 2020, Kamala Harris becomes president.