Losing out on the Democratic Party nomination to Barack Obama in 2008, Hillary Clinton failed to convince Americans that she posed a true break from the status quo.

Entering the race for a second time, writing last year I predicted America might again want someone and something different.

On Tuesday Americans voted for just that: a man who, unlike Clinton, had never before held political office and who would break all the rules of political correctness and campaign expediency.

Despite best efforts to re-brand herself against the ultimate outsider in Donald Trump, to the American electorate she personified a resented establishment.

The Democratic Party, from the outset either unwilling to or incapable of standing in the way of the Clinton ‘machine’, must take some responsibility for Trump’s election.

The party’s nomination contest was more like an extended coronation yet throughout the presidential campaign Clinton was plagued by allegations of corruption, and relied too heavily on favourable demographics outnumbering Trump’s “basket of deplorables” at the ballot box.

Ready only for Hillary, the Democratic Party put all its eggs in one basket and failed.

Whereas 17 candidates had sought the Republican Party’s nomination and each stood a chance of winning, when Clinton resigned as Secretary of State in 2013 her presidential ambitions were clear. Only two Democratic candidates, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders, dared to run against her.

O’Malley dropped out within a matter of weeks. Sanders made a good run of it but, realistically, never looked like winning.

And so it was the radical Trump versus the status quo in Clinton; already somewhat of an incumbent, given her involvement with the Obama administration and considering Democrats had held the White House for two terms. In US politics third terms are rare.

The media played up divisions in Republican circles but, evidently, this mattered little to voters, motivated to make America great again. Republicans now dominate the White House and Congress simultaneously for the first time since 1928.

Ready only for Hillary, the Democratic Party put all its eggs in one basket and failed.

As the first female candidate from a mainstream party, a wife, mother and grandmother, a former Senator and Secretary of State, she offered something very different to the role of President but not to a country desperate for renewal.

That’s twice Hillary had her chance. The Democratic Party will require renewal too.