2016 US.Presidential election update: 5 very smart things Donald Trump has done since becoming the presumed GOP nominee

Donald Trump effectively locked up the Republican presidential nomination on the night of May 3 when he won a sweeping victory in the Indiana primary. Ted

Cruz ended his campaign that night. John Kasich followed suit the next day.

It's been 16 days since that night. And Trump, the least orthodox presidential nominee in modern political history, has made a number of very smart moves to coalesce the GOP behind him while also setting the terms of the general election fight to come against Hillary Clinton.

Here are five examples of Trump being smart:

1. Traveled to D.C. to meet with Paul Ryan

This was a win-win for Trump. His past condemnations of many of the party leaders in Washington — and their doubts about his ability to lead the party — made it very hard from an optics perspective for people like Ryan to simply throw their support behind Trump once it became clear he was the nominee.

A gesture was needed, something that these members of Congress could point to as evidence that they had brought Trump to heel or, at the very least, that they had expressed their concerns to him, he had heard them and both parties were satisfied with the outcome.

The mood in the wake of Trump's visit — from Ryan to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus — was ebullient.  And, more importantly for Trump, it was clear that Ryan would, at some point in the not-too-distant future, be for him.

2. Hiring a pollster

Trump made much of the fact that during the primary process he had no pollster. It was a point of pride and proof  that he was different (and better) than all of the calculating politicians he was running against.

The decision to bring on Tony Fabrizio, a well-known pollster within GOP circles, is a mature decision by Trump. Here's why: Winning a primary fight without a pollster is one thing. The calendar is laid out months (years?) in advance. Most of the time, a single state or, at most, two to four states vote on a single day.  It's a sequential process where momentum matters. A lot.

Winning a general election is something different. The electorate is much broader and, therefore, more complex when it comes to targeting messages and the like. All of the states vote on the same day, too, meaning that you need someone with actual hard data to help justify spending and travel decisions.