'A complete earthquake': Joe Scarborough reacts to Trump winning the presidency
"A complete earthquake," Scarborough said, describing Trump's win. "This was an earthquake I haven't seen since Ronald Reagan in 1980, it just come out of nowhere."
The longtime Republican, one of the first major media figures to predict Trump's political viability, noted that the new president-elect successfully altered the map for himself and Congressional Republicans, likely boosting Republican Senators in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
"We don't do well in presidential year elections. Something happened last night that will forever shake up the coalitions that make up the Republican and Democratic party," Scarborough said.
The MSNBC host speculated that many of the polls heading into the election showing Hillary Clinton with a wide lead were skewed because respondents were embarrassed to tell telephone pollsters that they were supporting the real-estate mogul.
"People would not admit they were voting for Donald Trump because they watched TV every day, and everybody every day said Trump as a racist, he was a bigot, he was a xenophobe," Scarborough said. "And if a pollster calls you up and says 'Who are you voting for,' you don't say Donald Trump."
The Associated Press declared Trump the president-elect at 2:30 a.m. ET, shortly after the wire service placed Wisconsin in his column.
Trump's victory was one of the most stunning political upsets in history. Clinton was strongly favored to emerge as the victor on Tuesday night, with some analysts estimating Trump's odds of winning the election as low as 1%.
Oliver Darcy contributed to this story.