You will not find a wall adorned with framed magazine covers in Ivanka Trump’s office. For that sort of thing you’ll have to visit her father, who can look up from his desk and see himself beaming down from Time and Playboy. In fact, on the day we met for a conversation about my biography of Donald Trump, Ivanka, 33, had placed a framed article about herself on the floor. That’s not to say that the former model, and current fashion and real estate exec doesn’t revel in her fair share of the spotlight. Ivanka’s face has adorned magazine covers for years, from Seventeen to Shape to Harper’s Bazaar. But, unlike the father, the daughter seems so secure about herself and her prominence that she doesn’t need to brag. As the second-most famous member of a family that all but fetishizes good breeding—brother Donald Jr. calls it the “racehorse theory” of talent—Ivanka seems to be missing the desperation gene that drives her father’s constant pursuit of clicks and clippings.

On the campaign, Ivanka Trump, who grew up playing in her father’s office, is his most influential adviser, his de facto first lady in waiting and his character foil: the cautious, measured power behind the striving, showy candidate. She was the first person Trump mentioned by name when Sean Hannity asked in August, “Is there anyone close to you that you count on most?” and the member of his inner circle whom he consulted during the Megyn Kelly imbroglio. And when Trump announced his candidacy in June, it was Ivanka who introduced her father, while his wife, the former Melania Knauss—a less public person save for her sometimes racy work as a fashion model—stood in the background. As the crowd cheered, the candidate’s daughter flashed a telegenic style that is more polished than her father’s blend of Archie Bunker and Jay Gatsby and far more self-assured. She is the softer, more refined side of the Trump brand and an antidote to the candidate’s abrasiveness.

Read the article “The Quiet Power Behind the Trump Throne” on politico.com.