The Jacob K. Javits Convention Centre in Manhattan is famous for its glass ceiling – and Ms Clinton’s Democrats had planned to smash a glass ceiling of their own with the election of America’s first female president.

By around 10pm local time, though, the mood at the party was starting to turn as a swathe of “swing states” fell in rapid succession to Donald Trump’s Republican Party, handing him the presidency.

Former Labor candidate for Calare Jess Jennings was among the thousands of Clinton supporters gathered at the Javits Centre hoping for a celebration but left lamenting a calamity.

Dr Jennings had been in the US volunteering on the Clinton campaign and said the result came as a shock to those around him.

While he did not make it into the 10,000-seat convention centre on the night he was able to rub shoulders with other supporters at a block party just outside.

“We were watching it on the big screen but we also had some significant supporters come out to speak with us including New York mayor Bill de Blasio and Katy Perry,” Dr Jennings.

“The atmosphere was electric and buzzing for an hour or so and then it tapered off to neutral and people started to get worried, and then it became the greatest fizzer of all time.”

Dr Jennings said the result was both a victory for Mr Trump’s ability to say what voters wanted to hear and also a backlash against the Clinton dynasty in American politics.

“I have to give him credit, though, because he didn’t just beat the Democrats, he also beat the Republicans because many of them had also turned against him,” Dr Jennings said.

“In political terms, that’s extraordinary.”

Charles Sturt University political commentator Associate Professor Dominic O'Sullivan said the election of Mr Trump showed the US to be “a nation deeply divided by race, class, education and age”.

“President-elect Trump won through the votes of white, working-class, older and less well-educated voters,” Professor O'Sullivan said.

“This group saw Trump as, like themselves, the Washington ‘outsider’. The contrast with Hillary Clinton, seen as the political establishment, couldn’t be starker.”