#5 I believe that there's a much simpler explanation for the Harris/Walz loss in 2024:
Throughout the month of October, 2024, the Trump campaign (and associated entities) spent $300,000,00.00 on ads in all 7 swing states during televised NFL and NCAA football games. The topic of all of those ads? Then-CA Attorney General Kamala Harris' 2019 response to a question about a Trump administration dictate on gender-affirming (read: trans) care for federal inmates.
And the amount of money the Harris campaign spent countering those ads in the swing states during NFL and NCAA football games? You know, to point out the truth that she was simply responding to a question about a Trump administration dictate on gender-affirming for federal inmates? To counter the deceptive, the lying-by-omission ads run by Trump & company?
Zero dollars
The efficacy of this strategy was born out election night, 2024, when Steve Kornacki was calling individual counties (starting with Pennsylvania) and highlighting that the Harris/Walz ticket was falling short of votes as opposed to the votes in the 2020 election for the Biden/Harris ticket. His reporting was, in effect, a death by 1,000 cuts for Harris/Walz.
Trump & company knew that all it would take would be the suppression of Biden votes in 2024 by just a point or two for Trump to carry those counties, all 7 swing states and, ultimately, the election. They judged, correctly, that men - men of color and white - would be turned off enough by the "pro-trans" Harris that they voted for Trump, or didn't vote at all.
Either way, mission accomplished.