How Trump Achieved the Seemingly Impossible

For those still reeling from the election that named a former reality TV star as president-elect, Politico takes a look at how it happened. Sure, Donald Trump looked like a long shot candidate this summer, even as Hillary Clinton appeared to shoot herself in the foot repeatedly with email scandals and an FBI investigation. But following a rocky Republican National Convention, when Ted Cruz refused to endorse Trump in his speech, the resignation of Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort helped turn things around. While aides had previously tried to tone down the candidate, new faces "let Trump be Trump." And even during what some called a disastrous first debate, Trump still managed to reach his audience, which liked what it was seeing.

Then when the infamous Access Hollywood tape leaked, Trump—feeling himself backed into a corner—attacked Clinton about her husband's dealings with women. It was "a political third rail for most conventional candidates—a tactic that Republicans had tested and deemed a failure, and an approach so ugly that even the Clintons’ most vocal detractors urged Trump against," reports Politico. Yet it worked. It was just one part of an "untraditional and unflinchingly shameless campaign" that appealed to far more Americans than polls had suggested. "On Election Day, voters judged the sins of both candidates equally," per Politico. "Trump simply edged out the win." Click for more, including Trump's strategy in the last two weeks. (More Donald Trump stories.)