Roger Jones is 73, retired and living in Griffin. He was surprised by the outcome but " tremendously pleased."
“What it says is I have underestimated my fellow American voters,” Jones said. “I really thought they would not see what I saw, that the past eight years in the United States the whole American way of life was being changed and we were in danger of losing our American heritage. I thought we needed somebody like Mr. Trump to come along.”
Kenneth Rogers, 46, voted for Clinton. The Fairburn business owner laughed when asked his thoughts on the election.
"The statement it makes about our population and the message it sends to the world is there are a lot more NASCAR and WWE (fans) than we like to admit. There is a contingent in our society that really believes that stuff. They believe reality TV is real and this is the best person for them because he's entertaining. He's a riot. Americans love that. But they don't think about their best interests and what this means for the rest of the world. America is so shallow. Sometimes you can only laugh. I laugh to hold back the tears. Hopefully I won't be crying."
Frank Lazaro, 43, of Tucker, said his vote for Trump was more a vote against Clinton. A former political science major, the marking professional said he can't look past the Clinton family scandals and is now hoping Trump's negotiation skills can be of use for America.
“I look at Trump as a business guy. I work in business. You always try to think about how you move the ball forward,” Lazaro said. “I’m looking at him as an outsider. Can he get everybody to come together and get the deal done?”
Michael Hamrick, 37, is manual laborer living in Gwinnett County who favored the Libertarian ticket.
“I think Michael Moore was right … when he said this election was going to blow up the status quo and the way things have always been done in American politics. You had a political outsider against his own party’s wishes and almost half the American (voters’) wishes get elected. That’s going to give us as Libertarians much more access to national election funds and things of that sort to really push our message going forward.”
“I remember people saying … when Obama trounced Romney ‘that’s the end of the Republicans.’ I still had to get up and go to work during the Obama administration. I’m still going to have to get up and go to work during the Trump Administration.”
Keith Singleton, 52 and living in Decatur, voted for Clinton. "Hillary, she owns the loss. I think she didn't do all she needed to do with the people who voted for Jill Stein in the other states. She would have won the election if she would have gotten the disaffected Jill Stein voters. …
“I don’t know why working Americans don’t trust Hillary Clinton. She lived in Arkansas all those years. She came from a working-class family. She needs to do some soul searching.”
Tom Langston, a Tucker resident who lost faith in the Democratic party about 10 years ago, was rooting for Trump, hoping Americans wouldn't elect "somebody with a track record of being corrupt."
He was excited Wednesday and could quickly give a list of what he hopes to see from a Trump presidency, including a “reset and reform” of the Affordable Care Act and a relaxing of “overreaching regulations.”
Plus, he wants to send a message to make sure the political class knows this: “We as citizens of this country are their bosses, not their subjects.”
Blake Kenya, 56, owns an architectural management company and has lived in Mableton more than 16 years. Kenya did not support Trump but respects his business acumen.
“Donald Trump is a businessman, but also a man of strategy. … He did a rope-a-dope: he had us thinking that he had no chance of winning,” and when the results came in Tuesday, “we didn’t know what hit us. It was a knockout.”
Kenya is approaching Trump with an open mind.
“I’m a veteran and an American. I didn’t vote for Donald, but I believe in giving any and everybody the benefit of the doubt. My challenge to him is to be a bigger person, listen to people who have been there and done that. He’s a businessman, but running the nation takes more, you’ve got to have heart … Everybody in the world is watching.”
Giles Sexton, 48, is a defense attorney and longtime conservative who lives in Gwinnett County. He said he never considered voting for Clinton, is happy Trump won and is now "interested to see what's going to happen."
“I’m gonna kind of let the coming days dictate how I feel about it,” Sexton said. “But regardless, we’re stuck with him for four years.”
He said he’s also looking forward to an end of the “bickering” among friends and colleagues on Facebook and elsewhere.
“I just hope we get some closure in the next couple days and it gets back to normal,” he said.
Holly Duncan, 35, said she's "oscillating between shock and fear and sadness."She voted for Clinton and lives in a Tucker neighborhood near the refugee-friendly city of Clarkston. She said she worries for the fate of her neighbors after a campaign season flush with tensions over refugees and immigration.
“I’m a Christian. I believe God has a heart for folks in the margins and I think a lot of those folks were the targets of (inflammatory rhetoric),” she said, adding that Clinton wasn’t her first choice. “I’m also fearful about what (Trump’s victory) might mean for immigrant families, whether they have legal status, are undocumented or are refugees. Discrimination can abound regardless of one’s legal status.”
Matt Lipasek, 40, says at first he was voting for Trump as the lesser of two evils. But he changed his tune on Wednesday.
“I think he’s exactly what we need to change the course,” Lipasek said. “We went into it thinking she was going to win, but I’m glad he turned it around and pulled it out.”
Lake Ritter, 49, is a lifelong Democrat and a math professor at Kennesaw State University. For him, Tuesday's results didn't add up to anything good.
“I’m disappointed,” he said. “I was surprised by how wide the margin actually was. … All I can think about is that there are cooler heads surrounding Trump to keep him from doing anything really stupid.”
Then he voiced the perennial “wait till next year” hope of sports fans everywhere: “I’m hoping that in 2020 we can turn it around.”
Brittany Whiters, 30, is a contract nurse from Lawrenceville. A black woman and a Clinton supporter, she was "terrified" as the election's outcome started to become clear.
“I think it was more so just feeling hurt and pain. That’s kind of what it’s been this whole election. Because it’s not necessarily who Donald Trump is, but it’s how he presents himself and the things that he says, his demeanor.”
“The hate that he’s brought up to the surface, that he’s revealed, that so many people in the nation have … that’s what scares me,” she added.
Pat Brownlow also voted for Trump. A retiree living in Powder Springs, she said her prayers and the prayers of others were answered.
“I believe God is an awesome God and he came through for us,” said Brownlow, 80. We’re just tired of the way they do (things) up there in Washington. They’re not working for us.”
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