New York Times: “Trump campaign advisers said on Wednesday that the president-elect was turning to assembling a cabinet and White House team and selecting a conservative nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy. The advisers said Mr. Trump was inclined to roll out a few cabinet nominations at a time, rather than kicking them off with one high-profile pick for a critical department like Treasury or State.”

“Among the candidates for cabinet secretaries and advisers are members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle, aides said, including Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a crucial adviser on policy issues; Steven Mnuchin, a businessman who was Mr. Trump’s national finance chairman; Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York; Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey; and Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House.”

“Donald Trump’s campaign prepared two speeches for Election Night on Tuesday — but more time was spent crafting a draft to concede rather than claim victory,” sources told NBC News.

“While the campaign had expressed confidence in public, their own data showed only a narrow path to the 270 electorates needed to win the White House. The senior team felt pressure to live up to the moment and acknowledge the outcome of a potential defeat by Hillary Clinton after the GOP nominee’s comments about a ‘rigged’ system and whether he would accept the results was widely derided by Democrats and members of his own party.”

“The first draft of a victory speech was no longer just a placeholder but needed revisions to reflect the scope of the night, sources said. That draft was revised in real-time when a victory was within sight.”

“Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss in the presidential race Tuesday night doesn’t just leave Democrats without a president in January; it leaves them without an obvious party leader or path forward as a party,” the Washington Post reports.

“Now the party begins the difficult task of trying to pick up the pieces and figure out exactly who it is and what it wants to be over the next two or four years.”

Amy Walter: “Clinton had a sophisticated analytics shop. Yet, as I watched this election unfold I was reminded of a statement by GOP pollster Glen Bolger in 2014, he said you can’t win on turnout if you are losing on message. Exit polls showed that the number one candidate quality that mattered most to voters was ‘Can bring change’ at 39 percent. Trump won those voters with 83 percent. Enthusiasm beats analytics every time.”

“Donald Trump ran against himself and won. The Manhattan billionaire who for decades boasted of his playboy lifestyle, stiffed contractors and vendors, hired illegal immigrants, eschewed churchgoing, embraced liberal causes, and counted Hillary and Bill Clinton as friends and allies pulled off one of the most brazen pivots in American history, selling himself to American voters as a populist hero who understood their frustrations and guaranteed a blizzard of wins,” the Washington Post reports.

“Trump did it the way he’d said he would for more than 30 years: He ignored the rules of modern politics and spoke to Americans in plain, even coarse, everyday language, without massaging his words through the data-driven machinery of consultants, focus groups and TV commercials. He scoffed at ideologies, preaching a tough, blunt pragmatism fueled by unbridled, unashamed ego. He told people what they wanted to hear: that a rapidly changing and splintering society could be forced back to a nostalgia-drenched sense of community and purpose, that long-lost jobs could be retrieved, that a pre-globalized economy could be restored.”

“The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before.”

— Donald Trump, in his first tweet as president-elect.

Dan Balz: “It’s impossible to overstate how uncertain the road ahead is at this point. But how will Trump govern, and how effective will he be? His core issues — trade, immigration, and law and order — offer clues but no clear road map for the future. Even in pursuit of the goals he outlined in those three areas, his proposals lack real specificity. But then, his campaign was not about policy white papers. It was instead a thumb in the eye of the establishment, an American version of the populist uprisings against open borders and globalization that have been seen in other Western societies.”

“Trump always said he smelled an American Brexit in the making — a reference to the unexpected victory in Britain in June by those who wanted to take the country out of the European Union. That vote caught the elites and the establishment totally by surprise. It was an uprising that went unseen until it struck. Trump’s victory was by far even more shocking. It was the kind of “can’t happen here” event that will go down as one of the great upsets in political history.”

“What happened Tuesday was a victory powered by an outpouring of voters, overwhelmingly white and many without college degrees, who felt left behind by the economic recovery, ignored by Washington and disdained by the political, cultural and economic elites. In the end, that was enough to topple Clinton and her dream of becoming the first female president in the nation’s history. The shock waves will be felt for months and maybe years.”