Séamas O'Reilly: How did Trump win the US election — and how did Harris lose?

"I am not in the business of rehabilitating the image of Trump voters — the combined ranks of the American media have spent nearly 10 years doing enough of that already — but this is too simple an explanation for what appears to have happened."

Britain's newspapers’ front pages reporting on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election, are seen in London, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024.

I was surprised by this week’s election in America, and I want to get that out of the way before I say anything else. 

This is not a case of ‘I told you so’, and I don’t wish to paint myself as that most loathsome genre of political writer: the prophet of the past.