Harris wasn't the most natural candidate perhaps and couldn't compare to a past president (and Apprentice show media celebrity) in terms of familiarity to voters, but what alternative candidate would you propose in her place?

Honestly, yes the defeat in retrospect was to be expected (to everyone but the pollsters maybe?) but Harris was no lightweight and it was reasonable to expect she could compete with a damaged (hey, the U.S. now has a felon president!) opponent who she defeated at the first & only debate. Had the election been held in August she'd probably have won, but give those trans-phobic tv ads time to sink in and male latinos would rather vote for the felon-man who had the presidential experience, and find a way to make his eggs a bit cheaper, along with the rest of inflation. Supposedly.

Harris was up against a lot of negativity and she wasn't well defined enough to find defense against it all. Trump, on the other hand, actively provided a defense against all the cases against him -- since fighting is all he has really. Even if he was losing and the defenses flawed -- even convicts in prison find women to wed them. Those prison brides share much of what we see in (some of the less practical) Trump voters.