CNN published this book, Unprecedented: The Election That Changed Everything, in the immediate aftermath of the presidential campaign, and it shows. Compiling news coverage from throughout the election with new revelations, it is interspersed with pieces by the network’s most prominent anchors. While everyone now knows the results from November 8th, the book provides an andequate retelling of how America got where it is today.



When campaign season began in early 2015, Hillary Clinton was already the presumptive Democratic nominee. Although she would face token challengers in Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee, and Martin O’Malley, only two figures loomed large in the fears of Clinton’s campaign staff: Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders. After Vice President Biden’s son died, he took himself out of the running and it was left to Sanders to present a progressive alternative to Clinton. Throughout the chapters focusing on the Democratic primary, it was clear the unexpectedly long contest took vital time out the Clinton campaign’s ability to shape the election narrative. She had faced a similar upstart in 2008 with Barack Obama, and many of the party’s upper echelons experienced feelings of déjà vu. Ultimately, however, Clinton was triumphant and earned Sanders’ endorsement at the convention.



On the Republican side, the party had seventeen candidates at the beginning of the race, with centuries of combined experience in state and federal government. However, the figure who loomed largest from the beginning was a comparative parvenu to the political scene: Donald Trump. Trump was long famous as a real estate developer and television personality, but had never, except for a brief flirtation with the Reform Party in 2000, run for office. Virtually the only thing every contributor to this book agreed on, though, was it was that outsider status that gave Trump the spotlight and made him so hard to defeat. The book has a few interesting reveals from the primary. In one paragraph it mentions Trump did not expect to last beyond October of 2015, and when he ceased campaigning, it was his intent to endorse his longtime friend Chris Christie. Ultimately, the opposite occurred and Christie was the first high profile former candidate to back Trump.



As the other candidates slowly fell away, the main remaining opponents to Trump were Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. While Cruz cast himself as even more conservative than Trump, Rubio reached out for a more moderate tone. Cruz performed fairly well in the primaries, while Rubio only won Minnesota and Puerto Rico. For a time, it appeared that no candidate would obtain a majority and there would be a contested convention. As states continued to vote, however, Trump amassed enough delegates to be guaranteed the nomination. Among some parts of the party, though, Trump was still viewed as a pariah. Mitt Romney and others led a group of “Never Trumpers” in casting about for a conservative alternative. First, there was a National Review writer named David French, who had virtually zero name recognition, and then Evan McMullins, who ran competitively only in his home state of Utah.



As the book acknowledges with some discomfort, the media did a terrible job predicting the outcome of the election. As CNN contributor and former Obama adviser David Axelrod acknowledged, “I could not have been more smugly self-assured” Clinton would win. A more cautious tone would have been prudent because each candidate had significant flaws that dogged them throughout the campaign: questions over Clinton’s culpability with her email server, and Trump with his tendency towards extreme rhetoric. Ultimately, Trump nearly lost the election over comments he made in 2005 in which he bragged about being extremely aggressive towards women he found attractive. The book indicates much of the media believes Trump was only saved because the F.B.I. reopened its investigation of Clinton, but I remain unconvinced. That announcement was made with only a little more than a week left before Election Day, and I think most people had already made up their mind by then. Trump stated he would win because he campaigned heavily in Rust Belt states, and ultimately he was proven correct.



The book closes with Election Night. That morning, virtually everyone believed Clinton would be the next president, but I remember watching CNN after the polls closed and by 9:00 P.M. a certain air of discomfort began to cross the anchors’ faces. As more states were called and I did the math on the others, I felt relatively confident by 10:00 P.M. Trump had achieved an upset. At 2:47 A.M., CNN made the same call; although he lost the popular vote, Trump triumphed in the Electoral College. Unprecedented clearly went to press shortly thereafter. In the printout of each state’s results, Michigan is still marked with gray (ultimately state officials called it in Trump’s favor). At certain points in the book, it reads as if it were quickly rewritten to account for the unexpected conclusion of Trump’s victory. Nonetheless, the book offers often insightful takes from some of the most prominent members of the media. In ten years or so, memoirs will be written telling the hidden parts of both the Clinton and Trump campaigns, but in the meantime, this is a useful first look at the history of the 2016 presidential campaign.