Funny, isn’t it?

Some of those who never foresaw the election of Donald Trump continue to try to explain why he won.

Yet many of them don’t grasp that this first-time candidate uniquely had his finger on the electorate’s pulse.

Nor do they grasp what has been on this page over the course of multiple elections: Beginning with the full ascendancy of the American conservative movement in presidential campaigns in 1976, the formula for GOP success in presidential elections has been consistent and simple.

Republican candidates in this center-right country win when they’re seen by both Republicans and by those eager to support conservative-leaning candidates as sufficiently embodying conservative ideas and when they cheerfully and persuasively articulate those ideas while broadly reaching out to all Americans, including those who don’t ultimately vote for the Republican candidate: Reagan ’80, Reagan ’84, Bush ’88, Bush 2000, Bush ’04, and Trump ’16.

Republican presidential candidates not sufficiently following this path come up short, however narrowly or not so narrowly: Ford ’76, Bush ’92, Dole ’96, McCain ’08, and Romney ’12, extraordinarily good people all.

Did President Trump always follow all parts of this formula for success? Was the 2016 election just like others in recent decades? No, and everyone knows that.

Nevertheless, he followed the winning path well enough to prevail, especially in the closing weeks when he humorously yet wisely said to himself during a campaign speech, “Stay on message, Donald. Stay on message.”

Moreover, to the extent that he constructively shifted from usual GOP positions on some issues, the 2016 election — like elections such as 1932 and 1980 — may portend a realignment of voting patterns if Republicans stick to the principles on which they prevailed.

Are any other factors ever relevant in presidential elections? Of course, including two that receive little attention.

First, it took the Democrats half a century after 1860 to re-emerge as a consistent force in presidential races. But once they began accomplishing that in 1912, the country has usually alternated between eight years of Democrats and eight years of Republicans. The only exceptions have emerged in various ways from Calvin Coolidge in 1928, Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944, Harry Truman in 1948, and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984.

Second, it’s currently hard for either major party to beat an incumbent president. Having had only five presidents in the 36 years from 1980 to 2016 — Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama — America has just matched the presidential-continuity record from two other 36 year periods with two-term-maximum presidents: Washington, Adams 2, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe from 1788 to 1824, and Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams 6, and Jackson from 1800 to 1836.

Yet neither of those factors detracts from the victory that the president earned — the first since 1928 for a Republican ticket without a Nixon or a Bush — and which so many smarty pants, particularly in the political and press establishment, never saw coming.

West Ellicott resident Randy Elf has been a teacher, a Post-Journal reporter, a law clerk to two federal judges, a state Assembly candidate and a lawyer who has defended First Amendment rights to political speech for Americans from across the political spectrum.