I don’t believe that she learned she was losing from the returns. The actions of the campaign in the final weeks showed quite clearly that her campaign was well aware that it was behind.
Though I'm sure she was the very last one to believe it, and not until midnight - when she grabbed Podesta by the collar and started screaming at him. :)
You may very well be right. The Thursday before Election Day I met a friend for beers in the Village. It’s a weekly three hour ritual. His daughter is married to a guy whose mom is a 40+ year close friend of Hillary from college. My friend was a Hillary backer and when I joked about how weird this election was, he said, “ I can’t believe how bad this is.” I changed the subject to Fordham football, but Tuesday night as the returns came in, I remembered what he said and I thought, they, the campaign, knew.
I remember a story about the Japanese Emperor at the end of WW2 thought everything was just fine, until a couple of his cities went missing.
The lesson learned- surround yourself with yes-men’ and you never learn anything important.