Election 2024 updates: Trump begins selecting cabinet positions

In a statement released moments after Vice President Kamala Harris' concession speech, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state would "seek to work with" former President Donald Trump.

"California will seek to work with the incoming president -- but let there be no mistake, we intend to stand with states across our nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law," Newsom said.

Newsom applauded Harris, who he said "set out to fight to defend our fundamental freedoms and build a country that works for everyone."

"She stood up for working families, decency, and opportunity," he said. "Though this is not the outcome we wanted, our fight for freedom and opportunity endures."

Progressive independent Bernie Sanders, who won re-election in Vermont Tuesday, put out a scathing statement Wednesday about the Democratic party's "disastrous" campaign.

"It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right," Sanders said.

In addition to reflections on the ways that the party has failed to deliver economic stability to working class people, the statement also criticized the continued spending of "billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government's all-out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children. "

He said a "'serious discussion" is now merited about the path forward and cast doubt on the party's ability to learn its lesson.

"Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not."

Closing out her concession speech, Vice President Kamala Harris urged her supporters to remain optimistic despite the loss.

"I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case," she said. "But here's the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars."

In her concession speech, Vice President Kamala Harris said she told former President Donald Trump that her team would "engage in a peaceful transfer of power."

"A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results," Harris said. "That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny. And anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it."