In what was billed as a statistical dead heat, Republican nominee Donald Trump once again repudiated the experts and struck a decisive blow in the 2024 United States (US) presidential election, catapulting himself to a second, non-consecutive term in the White House. FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends his campaign rally at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, U.S., November 1, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo (REUTERS) Trump, no stranger to shredding the political rulebook, led a sweep of the seven critical “swing states”, eliminating any plausible path to victory for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris’s best route to the White House always lay through the “Blue Wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump not only smashed this bulwark, but he also ran the tables in the “Sun Belt” states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. In the current era of US domestic politics, “big” victories are often measured in the hundreds of thousands of votes. In this light, Trump’s 2024 triumph qualifies as sweeping. Although ballots …