Trump’s win comes as shock to many

So much for presidential polls.

Every projection of the outcome of the race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton predicted that Clinton would win. The New York Times forecast, which gave Clinton an 85 percent chance of winning, said that Clinton’s chance of losing was about the same as the probability that an NFL kicker misses a 37-yard field goal.

On Tuesday, the Clinton team kicked the ball way outside the uprights.

Trump’s victory also was a poke in the eye for the nation’s establishment, such institutions as Congress, where a number of prominent Republicans refused to endorse him, and the media, the pundit class in particular, which underestimated Trump from the day he he descended the escalator to announce he would run to the moment he was declared the winner. Trump clearly tapped into a reservoir of voter angst – anger, fear, apprehension, the desire for a new direction for the country – that most observers just couldn’t register.

Almost no major newspapers endorsed Trump. Some that had not endorsed a Democrat for decades endorsed Clinton. In the end, it didn’t matter.

It was a bad day for Democrats, not only in the presidential race but also at the congressional level. Democrats were thought to have a chance of taking control of the U.S. Senate but as of Wednesday had gained only one seat, leaving the GOP majority in place. Democrats gained only half a dozen seats in the House, leaving Republicans with a margin of more than 50 seats.

This means, that Republicans now are positioned to enact their legislative agenda with a president who will sign their bills, not veto them. Trump has pledged that one of his first acts will be to help Congress dismantle the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Last year’s nuclear deal with Iran also might be toast. The Trans Pacific Partnership almost surely is dead, and Trump even has threatened to undo the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Those, of course, are just a few of many changes Americans can expect during Trump’s presidency. He is the polar opposite of Obama on a host of issues, ranging from immigration, to trade, to taxation, to foreign policy.

And, significantly, Trump will be able to nominate a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court and perhaps others with the expectation that they will be quickly vetted and confirmed by the Republican Senate.

But with this new power comes responsibility. Republicans now will have to govern, not simply obstruct.

If they are going to repeal the ACA as threatened, they’ll need to come up with something to replace it for the more than 20 million Americans who now are insured under the program.

And while the Republicans prevailed, this campaign revealed how deeply divided the nation is and how challenging it will be to find common ground on thorny issues. For the good of the nation, we hope Trump succeeds in that effort.

This story was originally published November 9, 2016 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Trump’s win comes as shock to many."