It was the night that wasn’t supposed to happen, that had almost no chance of happening. Having relied on major media, and the overflow of polls it fed readers on a near-daily basis, the audience sat back and waited for a Democratic victory, possibly a rout. Could the Senate be reclaimed by Democrats, or even the House?

On Tuesday afternoon, The New York Times told readers in its Upshot polling feature that Hillary Clinton had an 84 percent chance of winning. And for many weeks leading up to Election Day, The Times delivered a steady stream of stories. One described Clinton’s powerful and well-organized ground operation — and Trump’s frazzled counterattack. Another claimed a surge in the Latino vote that could decide the election. Others speculated on the composition and tenor of a Clinton cabinet. The picture was of a juggernaut of blue state invincibility that mostly dismissed the likelihood of a Trump White House.

But sometime Tuesday night, that 84-percent Clinton win Upshot figure flipped. Suddenly it was 95 percent — for Donald Trump. And when readers woke up Wednesday, they learned that the second forecast, at least, was on target.

Readers are sending letters of complaint at a rapid rate. Here’s one that summed up the feelings succinctly, from Kathleen Casey of Houston: “Now, that the world has been upended and you are all, to a person, in a state of surprise and shock, you may want to consider whether you should change your focus from telling the reader what and how to think, and instead devote yourselves to finding out what the reader (and nonreaders) actually think.”