The Democrats expected to wake up on Wednesday morning with the country’s first female president, backed by a Democratic-controlled Senate, ready to build on the legacy of an unusually popular two-term president.
Instead they find themselves in disarray, shut out of the White House, without control of Congress and no obvious new leader or path forward and the threat of decades of conservative control over the Supreme Court.
Even before the 2016 election cycle, the Democratic bench was shallow and ageing. The decision by Joe Biden, the vice-president, not to run for president after the death of his son Beau last year paved the way for Hillary Clinton.
Martin O’Malley, her only Democratic challenger, dropped out after the first primary caucus. The establishment then closed