She’s one of the world’s most powerful conservative leaders – and she just won again

It was a risky gamble to call a snap election – her career was on the line. But now Japan’s Sanae Takaichi is basking in the strongest majority for a Japanese government in more than 70 years.

Here’s how this unapologetic conservative, who Trump has lavished praise on, pulled it off. In the four months since becoming leader, she had skyrocketed in popularity, galvanized typically-disengaged young voters, and given a fresh new face to the country’s political landscape, which for decades was dominated by older men.

This mass appeal translated to a landslide victory on Sunday, securing Takaichi’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a historic two-thirds supermajority in the lower house of parliament – the first time a single party has done so since World War II.

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