How did Donald Trump make Mitt Romney president in 2016?

That is the question some pundits could be asking each other next November when they try to figure out how the president-elect, who had taken himself out of consideration for the Republican nomination in early 2015, became a winner.

What will be the answer to that question?

It could go something like this:  Romney still wanted to be president when he dropped out. But he was smart enough to know that many Republicans viewed him as damaged goods, a loser, and outdated. He saw many of his 2012 supporters getting behind Jeb Bush. Romney wanted to run for president, but he did not think he could win the grueling nomination contest. But, if the other Republican candidates faltered, he would be ready.

Continuing the explanation, something did make the other candidates falter. That something was Donald Trump, who took the air out of the sails of Jeb Bush and those of the other candidates. They were dead in the water. Trump’s aggressiveness and their weak and jumbled responses pushed them out of the race. Republican leaders had to accept Trump as the party’s nominee or rally around another candidate who could take out Trump in the late primaries and at the convention. That person was Mitt Romney. No longer damaged goods and loser, he was rested, fresh, and, in comparison to Trump, solidly presidential.

Romney’s strategy of standing aside and waiting worked. But it would not have happened without Trump’s pushing the other candidates off the platform and out of the race.

It could happen. In fact, something like it did happen in North Carolina 30 years ago. In September 1985, when word got out that Terry Sanford, a Democrat, was considering a run for the U.S. Senate seat then held by John East, a Republican, the initial reaction, according to Sanford’s biographers, Howard Covington and Marion Ellis, “was not encouraging.”

Covington and Ellis cited a story in The Charlotte Observer, which said, “The last time his name appeared on the N.C. ballot, in the 1972 Democratic presidential primary, Alabama Gov. George Wallace routed him, 50 percent-37 percent.”

The Observer story quoted U.S. Representative Bill Hefner, “I think Terry’s been out of the arena too long.”

“He’s outdated,” one Democratic official said.

Even old friend and loyal political supporter, Bert Bennett, was not encouraging, saying, “I just didn’t get the reception out there for Terry.”

Sanford adjusted and before the end of the month announced, “I am not going to run for the Senate.”

Covington and Ellis wrote that Sanford’s friends said, “he had bowed to the wishes of the party under [Lt. Gov. Bob] Jordan’s leadership in favor of [retired UNC President William] Friday’s candidacy.”

In the following months, after Friday declined to run, the strongest potential Democratic candidate was Sanford’s friend, Lauch Faircloth, who was too conservative for the party leadership.

But none of the possible Democratic candidates could beat Faircloth in the primary—except Sanford.

Suddenly, Sanford was no longer “outdated.”

He was the leadership’s only hope to keep Faircloth from winning the Democratic nomination.

In January 1986, Sanford reentered the race and won a clear primary victory, going on to defeat U.S. Senator Jim Broyhill, the incumbent, who had been appointed after the death of Senator East.

Stepping back for a while worked out well for Terry Sanford, and it might work for Mitt Romney, too.

None of us can know for sure who will be the parties’ candidates for next year’s presidential election.

Donald Trump’s initial successes are closing doors for some candidates and might open some doors for others.

One thing is for sure.

If Mitt Romney should win the Republican nomination and the general election, he will owe Donald Trump a big thank you.