UK Donald Trump supporters ‘thrilled’ by victory while Democrats ‘floored’
Americans living in the UK had mixed reactions to Donald Trump’s historic return to the White House.
A Donald Trump supporter in the UK has shared her delight at the US election result, while a Democrat voter said he is “floored”.
Republican Mr Trump has been elected the 47th president of the United States after a win in Wisconsin, which gave him the 270 electoral votes needed to defeat Democrat Kamala Harris.
Linda Impey, 77, from Maryland, said the Republican president’s win is “very good for the world”.
“I think it’s a great thing, and I think because it’s going to be good for the economy and it’s going to sort out the immigration,” Mrs Impey, a retired school matron living in Essex in south-east England, told the PA news agency.
“I think JD Vance is an absolutely great pick for vice president because he’s the polar opposite to Donald Trump.
“He’s led a very meagre young life, whereas Donald Trump has come from a privileged background.”
Mrs Impey, who was unable to vote as her absentee ballot didn’t arrive in the post, also thinks Mr Trump’s friendship with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage would be “helpful” for the UK.
“I do think it’d be very good for the world, maybe not so good for China, because he’s going to put a lot of tariffs on and I think because we’ve left the EU, I think this country will be more fair, much better than the EU with import tax,” she said.
“I’m thrilled with the result.”
Meanwhile, Democrat voter Pete Lawler, who has spent the last two months campaigning across the city to get fellow Americans in the UK to vote, said he was “floored” by the result.
The 46-year-old teacher from Pennsylvania who lives in Walthamstow in east London said he was still processing what had happened on Wednesday morning.
“I’m feeling emotional frustration right now, I’ve already cried once this morning. I’m just settling into processing things,” Mr Lawler told PA.
Mr Lawler said his colleagues were looking at him with a “sense of bereavement” on Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday night, he joined fellow Democrat supporters at an event at the London School of Economics campus in Holborn in central London.
“People were quite happy, excited and jubilant. There was a sense of their sense of giddiness. There was a sense of anticipation,” he said.
“There was a sense that we were all kind of pulling together towards the same positive outcome.”
However, after chatting to his brother on Tuesday night, that hope shifted.
“I was chatting to my brother, who was working last night, I think he was helping to cure ballots,” he said.
“We were kind of texting back and forth. And about 3.10am last night, he texted me to say things (were) not looking good.
“I think as Democrats, as progressives, we haven’t quite got to the point where we’ve been able to articulate or figure out why the lived reality of people in America doesn’t match up with the objective reality of the way the economy is going.
“I think that the right has been able to steer the conversation, that’s meant that people have been able to blame that feeling of not doing well on the outsider or people who are not like them.”
