Well, I thought about your post.
Perhaps you are right. There was a large contingency persuaded by mumbo jumbo the last election wasn’t there.
It is the nature of campaigning, there are many layers to what we call the voters, also, it isn’t enough for them to merely plan to vote for you, you need to imprint them enough, that if election day is wet and cold and they have to work overtime, they still force themselves to go to the voting booth for YOU, because they feel a connection to YOU, because they feel that you worked your tail off to campaign hard, and to take the time to campaign in THEIR state, and that you deserve their vote, that they owe you their vote.
The more layers, the more micro niches of voters that a campaign can reach, the better. Reality, time, and money limit how many layers and niches can be reached, but the more, the better, and in every campaign, people are watching how hard you work, and they are measuring YOUR work effort as a candidate, and from that they are measuring how much you care, and how much they should care for you.
These little things by a more energetic, harder working candidate, has knocked off many complacent, over-confident incumbents.