kingmaker

“I had always been a big Samuel Alito fan,” Leo told the New Yorker, and you can almost imagine the kingmaker saying it with a big wink.

The result won't just be a referendum on Trump's presidency so far, but will test Musk's reputation as a kingmaker in American politics.

If neither party reaches the magic number of 76 seats in the House of Representatives, which poll after poll paints as unlikely, independent candidates could be the kingmakers of any future government.

The Atlantic dubbed Kirk “the right’s new kingmaker.”

Critics have suggested Harris’ rise had more to do with political savvy — or her relationship in the mid-1990s with San Francisco political kingmaker Willie Brown — than talent or smarts.