Jeff Greenfield: “In part, it’s because the Republican Party had already embraced behavior that would once have been unthinkable. Of course you can’t really threaten not to raise the debt ceiling; that would risk something close to a global financial meltdown. (Of course you can’t use the filibuster on almost every key piece of legislation to turn majority rule into a supermajority). With so many “unthinkable” positions turned into an agenda, choosing a nominee—and a president—without traditional credentials was just another step down a road already taken.”

“There is, however, more to the story. Trump was immune to the hits that would have doomed any other candidate, in large part, because his ardent supporters hear any negative assertions as coming from a corrupt, incompetent, mendacious establishment that has ignored and/or betrayed them.”

First Read: “With Democrat Maggie Hassan the apparent winner of New Hampshire’s Senate contest, Republicans will most likely enjoy a 52-48 majority in the Senate next year. It’s striking that the three GOP Senate candidates who lost on Tuesday — Kelly Ayotte, Mark Kirk, and Joe Heck — were the ones who distanced themselves from Trump. Guess that didn’t work out so well.”

Nate Silver: “What would have happened if just 1 out of every 100 voters shifted from Trump to Clinton? That would have produced a net shift of 2 percentage points in Clinton’s direction.”

“Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida flip back to Clinton, giving her a total of 307 electoral votes. And she’d have won the popular vote by 3 to 4 percentage points, right where the final national polls had the race and in line with Obama’s margin of victory in 2012.”

New York Times: “For all his boisterousness during the campaign, Mr. Trump was more muted than exuberant in its aftermath, according to people who spoke with him throughout the day. His victory over Hillary Clinton caught even him by surprise: Like Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump tracked the race through private polling that indicated he was headed for defeat, and he went all but silent in his apartment on Tuesday night as the returns from Florida turned in his favor.”

“A startled Mr. Trump fielded conciliatory phone calls from political dignitaries, including Republicans who resisted his candidacy, like Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush, and from Democrats with whom he may clash in office, like Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House of Representatives.”

“Vigils and protests against Donald Trump spread from coast to coast early Thursday as crowds burned effigies of the president-elect, blocked highways and warned of wider backlash — underscoring the difficult task Trump faces in uniting a fractured country,” the Washington Post reports.

“Despite Hillary Clinton and President Obama urging their backers to accept Trump’s victory and support his transition into power, thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets decrying his crude comments about women and attacks on immigrants.”

Politico: “From New England to heartland cities like Kansas City and along the West Coast, demonstrators bore flags and effigies of the president-elect, disrupting traffic and declaring that they refused to accept Trump’s victory.”