Republicans tallied impressive gains on election night. They won majorities in both houses of Congress and the presidency, control 24 governorships and state houses and are poised to return the Supreme Court to a 5-4 conservative majority. Given the party's strong showing it would be tempting to conclude that the country is yearning to move in a conservative direction – that voters are asking its leaders to pass large tax cuts, roll back environmental regulations and gut financial reforms. A number of prominent Republican and conservative leaders drew exactly this conclusion on election night.

There are a couple problems with this analysis.

First, most Americans, including a majority of white working class Americans support an array of progressive economic policies. There is overwhelming support for paid family leave policy, for increasing the minimum wage and for increasing taxes on the wealthy – Americans earning more than $250,000 per year. During the campaign Trump expressed support for a minimum wage hike and Ivanka Trump spoke eloquently at the Republican National Convention on the importance of paid family leave.

Second, it's important to remember that despite Trump's sizable Electoral College advantage over Clinton, he really eked out an incredibly narrow victory. In three states –Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida – his margin was no better than 1.3 percentage points. In Michigan, he is currently leading by only 0.3 percentage points or only about 13,000 votes. Nationally, Clinton is projected to beat Trump by more than 2 million votes. When accounting for Americans who did not vote, Trump was supported by approximately one-quarter of those eligible to cast ballots. The 2016 election result actually says much more about our political system than it does about the character of the country.

Voters rejected Republican orthodoxy in the primary, and they were certainly not clamoring for it in the general election. Even if they are about to get it.

But that's not the end for the GOP. Here are four other challenges facing the party:

Trump is about to lose his most valuable asset. Trump's most valuable asset during both the Republican primary and general election was his lack of political experience, which allowed him claim to operate outside a political system that most Americans revile. He effectively bludgeoned Clinton for being part of a broken and corrupt system and it was key to his appeal particularly among white working class voters. Sixty-nine percent of his supporters say his lack of government experience was an important reason they were behind him. For many voters, it was the most compelling reason to support his candidacy. There were many voters like Donald Curry who said he was supporting Trump exclusively because "he's different, not part of the normal action in Washington. And I hope that he continues that way and the lobbyists aren't going to continue to run Washington as they are now."

Recent staffing moves may leave supporters like Curry disappointed. Trump's transition team includes a bevy of corporate consultants and lobbyists of the type that he railed against during the campaign. His selection of Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, as his chief of staff suggests Trump has made peace with the political establishment with remarkable efficiency. The late conservative author Stan Evans famously observed that "The trouble with conservatives is that too many of them come to Washington thinking they are going to drain the swamp, only to discover that Washington makes a great hot tub." The extent to which Trump is seen as capitulating to the political establishment could prove more politically poisonous than any hot mic moment.

Trump will not help broaden the GOP's appeal. Trump will be the 45th president of the United States. However, he accomplished this feat without addressing any of the Republican Party's demographic deficiencies.

Trump's image appears to be irrevocably tarnished by the campaign. Only one-third of the voters believe he is trustworthy and most say he is not qualified to be president. He will enter office in January as one of the most disliked presidents in the modern era. A PRRI poll conducted before the election found that 65 percent of the public viewed him unfavorably, including 50 percent who expressed a "very unfavorable" opinion of him.

His standing among young people and minorities is even worse. Despite their lack of enthusiasm for Clinton, fewer than 40 percent of voters under the age of 40 supported Trump and he lost non-white voters by unsustainable margins. His 36-point deficit among Hispanic voters was also likely understated by the exit polls.

For the next four years Trump will serve as the face and voice of a party that is badly in need of a makeover. More Americans have a negative view of the GOP today – 62 percent – than at any time in the last 20 years. Given Trump's tendency to court controversy – most recently by elevating Steve Bannon, the former executive director of Brietbart News, an outlet he described in July as a "platform of the alt-right," to a high profile post in his administration – he may well alienate voters the party will eventually need to remain competitive.

Trump is about to break a slew of campaign promises. Perhaps because Trump never thought he was going to make it this far, he made a series of extravagant promises to voters during the campaign that, even with unified control of government, he will find incredibly difficult to keep.

The border wall, if it is built at all, will be on the backs of U.S. tax payers not with Mexican pesos. With competing priorities and an estimated $25 billion price tag it faces an extremely uncertain future. Newt Gingrich said the claim that Mexico would pay for the wall was a "great campaign device," but that Trump was not likely to see it through.

Repealing Obamacare, a top priority for the incoming administration, is another promise that may prove more difficult to pull off. Taking health care coverage away from 15-20 million Americans has led some GOP members to express concerns about the political fallout of a full repeal. Trump has also shown an openness to keeping certain provisions of the legislation, which are popular with the public, but this may not be feasible. Nor does it seem like a full replacement is something that can be developed quickly. Some estimates suggest that it would take a minimum of two years for Republicans to come up with a viable replacement if they are able to come to an agreement at all. It's notable that since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the GOP has never been able to work up its own version of health care legislation.

Trump looks poised to walk back his promise to ban Muslims from coming to the U.S. Despite his repeated warnings about the danger that Muslim immigrants pose to the country, Trump now has expressed less interest in the issue.

Finally, one of Trump's most important promises to working class voters – that he would restore their communities and bring back jobs – he has no power to keep. The loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. has been spurred on more by automation and efficiency gains, than trade deals. Even the symbolic act of renegotiating trade deals is not so easily accomplished. Any move to restrict free trade would provoke concerted opposition from the Republican-friendly business community.

The potential for scandal is real. After eight scandal-free years in the White House, the risk of a major political scandal erupting in a Trump administration is a real possibility. Research has shown that the greater the antipathy of the opposition party to the current president, the more likely that a political scandal will emerge. This occurs in part because the opposition party demands increased media coverage of any allegations of wrongdoing. Despite the chatter about cross-over voting, Democrats loath Trump – only six percent report a favorable opinion of him.