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I read a tweet earlier asking the hypothetical question of "what could Trump do between November and January if he lost the election?"
In the UK, the election is lost and the winners enter 10 Downing Street. What power does the US President have after he has lost the election?
The 20th Amendment to the US Constitution states:
The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.
The incumbent President, therefore, legally retains all powers he had during most of his term in the 72-78 day period between Election Day (2nd-8th November) and the inauguration of the new President. According to the Congressional Research Service's publication, Presidential Transitions: Issues Involving Outgoing and Incoming Administrations:
The President’s authority to exercise power begins immediately upon being sworn into office and continues until he is no longer the officeholder. By the same token, while congressional oversight of the executive branch is continuous, some activities may take on special significance at the end or beginning of an Administration. The disposition of government records (including presidential records and vice presidential records), protections against “burrowing in” (which involves the conversion of political appointees to career status in the civil service), the granting of pardons, and the issuance of “midnight rules” are four activities associated largely with the outgoing President’s Administration. The incumbent President may also submit a budget to Congress, or he may defer to his successor on this matter.
The other two answers are correct that legally, nothing changes but practically, there's not much you can do. However, there's one effective "power" that a lame duck president has which they do not normally have: The ability to pardon without political consequences.
A president can pardon for any federal crime at any time, and no one (even their successor) can undo that. However, if they pardon someone highly controversial, it may have an effect on their chances of being reelected or their party's performance in the next Congressional election. But if they're not going to run again in the future, and there will be almost two years of other news events before the next Congressional election, they can pardon whomever they want without suffering for it, and their successor can't undo that.
For example, a third of the people Obama pardoned during his eight years in office were in those months after the 2016 elections, half them on his very last day.
The "lame duck" period (the three months between election and inauguration) doesn't see any differences in Presidential powers. The catch is you're unlikely to do anything in office that your successor cannot undo later. Congress is in the same boat but, historically, an incoming President will have their party in enough control of Congress to prevent any major legislation from being passed. Executive orders can typically be undone by the same powers that created them.
