Two top Colorado political strategists – one a Republican, the other a Democrat – agree on at least one thing: that the recent election in which Donald Trump won left them in shock.

“It was a very strange campaign. I don’t know that the campaign put us in a place where hope was something that survived,” said Alan Salazar, the Democratic chief of staff for Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, who recently left his role as chief policy officer and strategist for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

“I never saw this coming,” added Dick Wadhams, a long-time Republican strategist. “I’m still getting my arms around his victory in November because it defied every conventional wisdom on what it takes to win a Republican nomination.”

The two spoke at the Colorado Water Congress annual convention in the Denver Tech Center. The topic of the panel discussion was “A New and Different Administration: The Political Realities.”

Indeed there are new realities to digest. In just his first few days in office, President Donald Trump ordered a series of directives, ranging from cracking down on immigration, to blocking the EPA from communicating with the media and issuing grants and contracts.

He outlined proposals to build a southern border wall and repeal the Affordable Care Act, kickstart development of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines and withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

For Wadhams, the former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, who has run a seemingly endless list of high-profile GOP campaigns, Trump’s unorthodox style simply isn’t for him.

“As somebody who worked for very disciplined… people, I don’t know how you can work under those circumstances,” Wadhams said, pointing to Trump’s penchant for erratic early morning tweets.

“It drives me nuts,” he added.

But Wadhams pointed out that perhaps Trump’s flamboyant nontraditional personality is what propelled him to victory, which could be something for other campaigns to study. After all, Trump defeated not one, but two American political dynasties, including the Bush family and the Clintons.

“This is a guy who spent less money to be elected president of the United State than just about anybody who has been elected,” Wadhams said.

“The Republicans in Congress are still figuring it out,” he continued. “This is totally uncharted territory.”

Salazar said he thinks Trump’s tweets ultimately could be a boon to Democrats by undermining the new president’s credibility over time.

“But I’m an American before I am a Democrat, and I hope that he starts to act presidential,” Salazar said. “He promised he had the capacity to do that during the campaign.”

Wadhams expects “cross-currents” within the Republican Party over Trump’s proposals, with fractures already seen on issues such as trade and immigration reform.

Salazar, who worked as a senior adviser for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s Colorado campaign, said he is hopeful that Democrats, especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, will find a way to work with Trump over the next four years.

“The stuff that worries me the most is the international scene,” Salazar said. “The temperament of Donald Trump as commander-in-chief, I still have not reconciled in a way that makes me sleep well at night.”

Wadhams added that Trump has a long way to go in understanding the fabric of the nation.

“The president is still getting acclimated to the regional concerns across the nation,” he said.