How to Win a US Election

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After one of the most extraordinary and unpredictable US Presidential election campaigns, Americans have voted for their next President, choosing Donald Trump to take his place in the White House.

Before the first Presidential debate, polls indicated that the candidates were neck and neck. Then the momentum of the campaign changed, with Donald Trump rocked by the leaked tape of his lewd comments and repudiation by some Republicans. Following an astonishing second debate, Trump fought to keep his campaign on the road, returning to the tactics which had originally secured his nomination, firing up his core support with anti-Washington rhetoric and increasingly bitter attacks on Hillary Clinton. For Hillary Clinton lingering doubts remained in voters’ minds about her trustworthiness, clouding her bid to become the first woman president.

With the result still resonating, Katty Kay takes a post-election view from the perspective of the winning side. She hears why Trump supporters in the key swing state of Pennsylvania were so motivated to vote for Trump and explores the key moments and turning points from the campaigns.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In a few short hours last Tuesday night, America was turned upside down, or depending on your politics, right side up.
0:09.0	I'm Katty Kaye. On election night, I was anchoring the BBC's coverage from a studio in New York.
0:15.0	As the unexpected became reality, I found myself thinking,
0:19.0	how did Donald Trump win?
0:21.0	And why did so many people miss the scale of his support?
0:25.0	I like what he stands for with changing the system.
0:28.0	I want the system change. I want them doing more for me instead of doing for themselves making themselves rich and
0:34.7	me struggling we're all struggling I just think he'll surprise everybody
0:40.0	maybe win by a landslide who knows just because he's like one of us he's not a politician
0:47.1	I hope he wins I think he's close okay I think he'll pull it off. I've just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us, us, it's about us on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family on a very very hard fort campaign.
1:18.0	I mean she fought very hard on.
1:20.0	It's been one of the most extraordinary and unpredictable US presidential elections ever.
1:26.0	Let's go back a bit.
1:28.0	In September, before the first presidential debate, the opinion polls showed the candidates neck and neck. Then it shifted.
1:35.0	Donald Trump was rocked by the leak of his tape of crude comments about women.
1:39.0	After an astonishing second debate, though, he fought back, firing up his core support with anti-Washington rhetoric and increasingly bitter attacks on Hillary Clinton.
1:50.0	Then she was hit with revelations that the FBI was reopening an investigation into her email
1:56.6	server.
1:58.0	It was a tumultuous end to a campaign that had one last dramatic twist in store, the victory of Donald J. Trump.
2:07.0	Now that we've had a few days to absorb this seismic shift, it's worth asking how it happened. And let's start not here in
2:14.8	Washington or in New York but where this election was really won and lost in
2:20.0	the small town of Hershey, Pennsylvania.
	...

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