It's mostly surprising to me because it's the first time in 20 years that a Republican has won the popular vote.
I definitely don't agree with Cornholio (lol) but I agree with you that the Democrats ensured their defeat when they put up Kamala. Pretty sure last I checked, 15 million Biden voters just straight up didn't vote for her. She only got like 80% of Biden's voters.
Woke shit and deep state concerns are primarily right-wing issues and those people were already in for Trump. It might've brought over some independents, but what I think cooked Kamala, and this has been pretty obvious for weeks based on polling about what the top concerns are, is immigration and the economy, both issues that Trump looks way better on.
Kamala ran a pretty shit campaign too, even if you grant that she didn't have much time, she should've done non-stop interviews to get herself out there. Talk about the economy etc. Fact is, regardless of whatever nerd stats Dems wanna pull up about how actually the US is doing better, wage growth, inflation is easing, outperforming all other OECD countries blah blah, people prioritise their memory and their experience and most people remember how much better they had it in 2016-2019 under Trump. He also just talks about manufacturing a lot more than Kamala did.