The political castoffs, never-have-beens and backbench legislators who surround Donald Trump were warned that their work for the nominee would forever stain their résumés. Now they're in line for the most influential jobs in Washington.

Résumés are rolling in from operatives looking for administration work — offering one of the surest signs that whatever wound was opened during the ugly GOP primary has been healed by Tuesday night’s stunning victories that handed both the White House and Congress to the Republican Party.


“He couldn't even staff the campaign because no one wanted to be associated with him,” said one Trump ally. “It’s different now, but there's going to have to be a lot of forgive and forget. A lot of people who stayed away from this campaign could be a lot of help now, and both sides will have to get over it.”

Now, as the president-elect prepares to fly to the capital to meet with President Barack Obama, the Republican is closing in on several crucial appointments.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who embraced Trump far earlier than most establishment Republicans, is now the leading candidate to serve as White House chief of staff, the position Trump intends to fill first.

But he has competition. Transition chairman Chris Christie is making the case for a top job, too, based on experience and loyalty, and he could wind up in the chief position, according to two sources and Vice President-elect Mike Pence. But many operatives in Trump’s orbit are wary of giving Christie that top West Wing job, given his Bridgegate baggage.

Priebus and Christie are among the most experienced politicians advising Trump, and together with campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, they led a staff meeting at Trump Tower on Wednesday to lay out plans for the next 72 hours.

Meanwhile, Conway, who became a near constant television presence in the campaign’s final two months after being named campaign manager in the summer and whose sunny, indefatigable presence likely led many female voters to warm to Trump, could be White House press secretary, according to a source.

“I think that job is hers if she wants it,” the source said. “No one was more effective at carrying our message than her. On the campaign, very few staffers were accurately titled. She was officially the campaign manager but, really, she was the top spokeswoman.”

Also attending Wednesday’s Trump Tower meetings were Breitbart editor-turned-campaign CEO Steve Bannon; Pence; Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive rumored to be a likely treasury secretary; Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who quietly managed the day-to-day campaign operations; Donald Trump Jr.; Eric Trump; Rick Dearborn; and Sen. Jeff Sessions, the first senator to back Trump and a possible pick to be secretary of defense.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s original campaign manager, who is still working as a CNN contributor, has remained close to the candidate since his firing in June and was spotted leaving Trump Tower on Wednesday afternoon. He, too, is jockeying for a prominent position, either in the West Wing or, possibly, at the Republican National Committee, if Trump blesses him as his chairman of choice and Priebus moves over to the White House, according to sources close to Lewandowski.

Campaign press secretary Hope Hicks, the only one of four original staffers to work on the campaign from beginning to end, has always been at Trump’s side — and she is certain to remain in a similar role.

Trump is eager to roll out a few proposed Cabinet appointments, too, and possibly even to float one or two possible nominees to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court, according to a source.

The transition team is building short lists for these big jobs, and conservative groups are suggesting names. But, this new era of cooperation inside a party that had been split in two by Trump’s candidacy could see its limits reached soon. Finding consensus on opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue won’t be easy, given that much of Trump’s stated policy agenda runs aground of conservative orthodoxy held by GOP leaders in Congress.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who marveled Wednesday at Trump’s “incredible political feat” and spoke of being “very excited about our ability to work together,” supports free trade and the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact that Trump campaigned against with great success. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday was quick to throw cold water on another of Trump’s ideas that had resonated with voters eager to see him “drain the swamp” in Washington, stating that he opposes the president-elect’s goal of enacting congressional term limits.

What remains to be seen as a Trump presidency takes shape is whether the political neophyte can hold fast to his outsider brand while filling his administration with enough experienced people to capably and competently govern. And how will his most ardent supporters and denizens of an emboldened alt-right — the people who have believed in all his bluster, the promises to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it, to deport undocumented immigrants, ban Muslim immigrants and investigate Hillary Clinton — respond if he doesn’t follow through?

However Trump calibrates his approach to his first 100 days in office and those that follow, it’s clear that his closest confidants think it’s Trump, not Capitol Hill Republicans, who has the governing mandate and that the onus is on those outside his orbit to fall in line with the agenda chosen by the man walking into the White House.

"This all took shape because he courageously and fearlessly stood up for values that millions of Americans believe in that nobody, not even Republican leaders, would defend before,” said Sessions, the Alabama Republican, early Wednesday morning, citing Trump’s hard-line positions on curbing immigration and cracking down on free trade.

Andrew Restuccia and Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report.