No, he won by accident. They believed their polls that Hillary was going to win. Remember, they stopped counting in the middle of the night in 2016, but they didn't have the machinery in place to crank out a Hillary win.
That said, he was put at the GOP nominee on purpose. While the GOP voters chose him, he was given so much free airtime, and supported in such a way that it helped his campaign enormously. They thought it would be a loss so big that the GOP would be in the wilderness for years.
No, he won by accident. They believed their polls that Hillary was going to win. Remember, they stopped counting in the middle of the night in 2016, but they didn't have the machinery in place to crank out a Hillary win.
That said, he was put at the GOP nominee on purpose. While the GOP voters chose him, he was given so much free airtime, and supported in such a way that it helped his campaign enormously. They thought it would be a loss so big that the GOP would be in the wilderness for years.