Donald Trump just can’t get enough of the Sunshine State. As the president-elect races toward the White House, he’s taking several of its denizens with him, including political director James Blair. The Floridian is leaving his already green pastures for DC, trading in his strategic voter dissection for an illustrious role alongside the President.
Who is James Blair?
Despite his avid political affiliations and consistent appearances on Fox News, James Blair manages to keep much of his personal life under wraps. The Florida native is much less secretive of his political leanings, however, and it’s hard to knock him for it — Blair clearly knows what he’s doing.
Blair studied finance at Florida State University before founding Rapid Loop Consulting in 2013. It paved the way for his work as a consultant for the Republican Party of Florida, and eventually launched him into a roll at the Executive Office of the Governor as a policy director for the DeSantis-Nuñez administration in 2018. His work allowed him to segue into a position as Ron DeSantis’s chief of staff through 2019, before he transitioned into working as the political director for Trump’s reelection campaign. Once Trump was selected as the GOP nominee, he transitioned to political director of the Republican National Committee.
As Trump’s political director, Blair was really able to flex his political savvy. He strategized the outreach for low-propensity voters — one of the hardest groups to wrangle during election season —by directing Trump’s economy-driven campaign promises. “Those people overwhelmingly think that they’re worse off than they were four years ago,” he said on the campaign trail, “So then the question becomes: Who’s better equipped to fix it?” by carefully listening to voters, he was able to craft the narrative that only Trump could fix sky-high grocery prices.
Blair and his team pinpointed seven battleground states they believed would swing the election: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. He relentlessly campaigned in four of the targeted states (AZ, FL, MI, and OH), and helped build a rapport with Americans concerned with where their next meal might come from — a strategy that The Atlantic claimed would make his team “look like geniuses who revolutionized Republican politics — or the biggest morons ever put in charge of a presidential campaign.”
Moving beyond adults concerned with the price of their next meal, Blair guided Trump’s outreach with young men by focusing on “tough guy” rhetoric. Trump visited podcast like the Joe Rogan Experience and other programs directed at young men — specifically working-class Black and Hispanic men — like MMA and football games. Blaire’s strategy allowed Trump to win without appealing to moderate voters, justifying his snub of 60 Minutes, the second debate, and a number of traditional appearances nearly synonymous with presidential races.
Blair’s promotions to Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political, and Public Affairs will no doubt suit his considerable talent for motivating groups sympathetic to Trump’s cause — or, rather, finding groups that will fit a sympathetic cause. One things for sure, Blair understands poorer Americans and has shown he can wield the group’s sizeable number to suit Trump’s needs.
The president-elect’s staff appointments have historically been short-lived, with Anthony Scaramucci serving a comically short term of only ten days, and while Blair is certainly qualified, the tumultuous administration could easily toss him aside should his schemes fail to produce such clear results in the future.
Blair is certainly qualified for the position and will work alongside three other Deputy Chiefs, including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, fascist-adjacent enfant terrible Stephen Miller, and Trump’s Chief of Staff from 2016-2020, Dan Scavino, but only time will tell if the Floridian can hack it alongside his seasoned and well-connected peers.