For the fifth time in the last eight years a woman is named as this website’s American of the Year. Lara Trump joins a diverse group of women. Kellyanne Conway (2016), Nikki Haley (2018), Kizzmekia Corbett (2020), and Riley Gaines (2023) were the others so honored.

The 42 year-old was co-chair of the Republican National Committee this past year. In that role she was among the most influential individuals in getting her father-in-law, Donald Trump, elected to a second term as President of the United States.

Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, the former Lara Lea Yunaska is a graduate of North Carolina State University. She also holds an associate’s degree from New York’s prestigious French Culinary Institute.

In 2008, Lara was working for the syndicated investigative news magazine Inside Edition. Eric Trump was working with his father’s Trump Organization. While out clubbing separately with their respective friends, Lara spotted the youngest of Donald Trump’s three sons from across the room. She was “immediately intrigued” per a later interview with Ainsley Earhardt for Fox News.

The two began dating and five years later, Trump proposed. Lara accepted, receiving a diamond platinum ring from Ivanka Trump’s fine jewelry collection. They were married at his father’s Mar-A-Lago estate in Florida a year later. Lara had to wear casts on both arms in the wedding due to a horseback riding accident suffered weeks earlier.

Her father-in-law became the Republican Party presidential candidate in 2016. Lara took a two-month leave from Inside Edition to help in that campaign.

“When they’re reporting on your family on the show you work for, it’s a little challenging,” she told North Carolina’s Port City Daily that September. “We managed to keep everything pretty even-keeled for the duration of this whole thing. But certainly it’s nice to not have to worry about that from day-to-day.“

Donald Trump crushed Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College by 304-227 in the general election that year. He thus became the 45th President of the United States.

In March 2017, Lara was hired as a senior consultant for his reelection campaign. Per Business Insider she also began producing and hosting the “Real News Update” on the Trump presidency at Facebook. And at that same time it was announced that she and Eric were expecting their first child.

On September 12, 2017, the couple’s first child, Eric Luke Trump, was born. Two years later on August 19, 2019, the couple welcomed daughter Carolina Dorothy Trump to the world.

Her father-in-law would lose his 2020 re-election bid. That came following a summer of rioting and social unrest and in the midst of the exploding COVID-19 pandemic. The Democratic Party used the pandemic as an opportunity to reveal a massive mail-in voting tactic. There were also a series of questionable election night developments in Democratic Party strongholds.

The Trump team earned a hard lesson from that 2020 election. Donald Trump reemerged as the leading Republican candidate once again at the start of this year. He quickly and aggressively endorsed Lara for the Republican National Committee co-chair role.

On March 8, Lara was unanimously elected as co-chair, joining North Carolina party leader Michael Whatley. “As my father-in-law says, ‘bigly’ … We’re going to win!,” she said per USA Today during her acceptance speech in the ballroom at the Houston Hilton.

Over the next eight months, Lara blitzed the country on behalf of Donald Trump. “What we have going on in this country right now is not Republican versus Democrat or left versus right,” she said during a May address in North Carolina. “It’s good versus evil.”

In a June event she directly addressed 2020 tactics and put those who would cheat this time around on notice. “If you cheat in an election, we’ll find you. We will track you down and we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law.“

At an event in Detroit, Lara highlighted the campaign’s increasing emphasis on swing states like Michigan. “This is the most important and crucial election of any of our lifetimes,” she said per The Detroit News. “Everybody here knows that. It is palpable across this country. As you just heard, you can’t keep us out of Michigan! I was here Wednesday. I’m here on Friday. Donald Trump will be here tomorrow, and you’re going to have a constant flow of campaign and Trump’s here in the great state of Michigan.”

The emphasis on those battleground “swing states” paid off. In the end, Donald Trump swept Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona. He not only won the Electoral College as he had in 2016, this time by a 312-226 margin. The popular vote 77.3-75% also went in Trump’s favor.

It has often been said that leading the Democrats is easy. The follow their leaders and messaging like sheep. Leading the Republicans has often been compared to herding cats. There are so many independent thinkers in the party mix that it is often difficult to organize them effectively.

Lara Lea Trump proved more than up to the task this year. Her outstanding efforts were crucial in helping to organize the Republican Party during this crucial election. For this successful effort she earns the 2024 American of the Year nod.

NOTE: There were any number of worthy candidates for the honor this year. Those included the President-elect himself, Donald Trump. Among those also considered were Pennsylvania Republican election organizer Scott Presler and New York subway hero Daniel Penny.

PREVIOUS AMERICANS OF THE YEAR

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.