across the u.s., people reacted with a range of emotions to donald trump <u+2019>s upset win over hillary clinton on tuesday night, from shock to sadness to glee. here are the accounts of a dozen people as they recalled their reactions to the historic evening. rev. samuel rodriguez, president of the national hispanic christian leadership conference mr. rodriguez was on a red-eye flight to atlanta from his home in sacramento as election returns came in late<u+00a0>tuesday<u+00a0>night. he was watching on the small screen on the back of the airplane seat in front of him when the race was called for mr. trump. <u+201c>my first reaction was, this is a win for life. life won. the supreme court won. religious liberty won,<u+201d> mr. rodriguez said. <u+201c>my second thought was, we really have to heal this nation,<u+201d> he said. mr. rodriguez, a conservative evangelical pastor, expressed concerns about the republican candidate<u+2019>s election rhetoric about latinos. on wednesday, he noted that roughly 30% of latinos had supported mr. trump, <u+201c>even after his comments about mexican rapists and murderers.<u+201d> <u+201c>why? because of faith,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s such an intricate part of the community, and the democratic party doesn<u+2019>t get it.<u+201d> <u+2014>ian lovett deray mckesson, black lives matter leader mr. mckesson was at mrs. clinton<u+2019>s election night party at javits center in manhattan. with mrs. clinton behind in florida and in a tight race with mr. trump in virginia, her supporters realized a landslide victory for the democratic candidate was out of reach. the mood darkened at javits as the returns in came and mr. mckesson and others confronted the possibility that <u+201c>it might not happen,<u+201d> he said. when mr. trump pulled away, anxiety have way to <u+201c>shock,<u+201d> mr. mckesson said. the activist had slept little by<u+00a0>wednesday<u+00a0>afternoon, he said, and was considering the path forward. <u+201c>we need to grapple with why so many chose not to vote,<u+201d> he said, referring to drop in turnout of black voters, despite mr. trump<u+2019>s support for new york city stop-and-frisk practices and his descriptions of black communities as ravaged by crime and drugs. <u+201c>i think there are still people who don<u+2019>t understand the role the federal government plays in their lives,<u+201d> mr. mckesson said. <u+2014>joe palazzolo rev. robert jeffress, senior pastor at first baptist church in dallas and a member of mr. trump<u+2019>s evangelical advisory committee dr. jeffress spent much of<u+00a0>tuesday<u+00a0>at trump tower in new york. at one point during the afternoon, mr. trump asked him how he thought the evangelical vote would turn out. <u+201c>very strong,<u+201d> dr. jeffress replied. he was right. white evangelical voters turned out in huge numbers for mr. trump, with more than 80% supporting the gop nominee. <u+201c>many evangelicals understood that judicial appointments were the whole ballgame, not just the supreme court, but federal judges with lifetime appointments,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>most issues evangelicals care about<u+2014>the sanctity of life and religious liberty<u+2014>are adjudicated in the courts. i think evangelicals got that.<u+201d> as results began to come in, dr. jeffress was at the trump campaign<u+2019>s victory party, in the vip section along with <u+201c>about a thousands of mr. trump<u+2019>s closest friends.<u+201d> unlike many others in the room, dr. jeffress wasn<u+2019>t shocked by the results, he said. <u+201c>i traveled around the country, and i kept hearing so much support for mr. trump,<u+201d> dr. jeffress said. <u+201c>i kept believing there was a silent trump vote out there that really did materialize last night.<u+201d> <u+201c>nobody wants to be called a racist or a xenophobe or a misogynist, so i think they may have kept it to themselves.<u+201d> <u+2014>ian lovett kristy sabbah, operations director of the arizona chapter of the council on american islamic relations ms. sabbah started<u+00a0>tuesday<u+00a0>night in high spirits. around<u+00a0>6 p.m.<u+00a0>local time, she picked up four domino<u+2019>s pizzas and headed to a mosque outside phoenix, where she and about 20 other muslims gathered to watch election returns. they crowded into a room at the side of the mosque, seated on folding chairs and a few leather recliners, drinking coffee and joking. not a single trump supporter was in the room, ms. sabbah said. as results began to come in<u+2014>showing mr. trump ahead in florida and ohio and other states they didn<u+2019>t even expect to be in play<u+2014>the room grew quiet. people put their heads in their hands, or got up and left the room. at<u+00a0>9 p.m., despondent about what they were seeing, everyone packed up and went home, ms. sabbah said. she walked into her house to find her husband and two of her daughters in the living room. when she saw their faces, illuminated by the television, she knew it was over for mrs. clinton. she sent her children to bed, telling them the votes wouldn<u+2019>t be counted for many hours to come, then watched with her husband as one state after another turned red. the next morning, she told her children that mr. trump had won. <u+201c>i made sure to give the kids some extra hugs,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>i told them to hold their heads up high<u+2026>it<u+2019>s discouraging to see my children have to defend their religion constantly and be put in a position where they feel less american because of it.<u+201d> on her way to work<u+00a0>wednesday, she stopped at the starbucks drive-through and paid for the customer behind her. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m actually walking with my head up a little bit higher,<u+201d> ms. sabbah said. <u+201c>today, i took a little bit of extra pride putting on my head covering, my hijab.<u+201d> <u+201c>i told my kids, i want them to be proud of who they are. be proud they<u+2019>re muslim. be proud they<u+2019>re american. they don<u+2019>t have to choose between one or the other.<u+201d> <u+2014>ian lovett jody bostic, former coal miner in grundy, va. for mr. bostic, the trump election meant that <u+201c>we can get back to the way things used to be a little bit more in mining. hopefully there will be a few more jobs opening up.<u+201d> mr. bostic lives in buchanan county which, until the new york primary, was the county that gave mr. trump the highest percentage of votes in a republican primary. after being laid off from the coal mines several times, mr. bostic opened up a t-shirt shop. mr. bostic said he followed the election closely, checking his mobile phone for updates, starting around<u+00a0>6 p.m. local time, while he was in the shop and continuing when he went home. he didn<u+2019>t go to bed until about<u+00a0>1 a.m.<u+00a0>when he was confident mr. trump would win. <u+201c>i wasn<u+2019>t surprised he won,<u+201d> he said. if people compared trump and clinton, he said, <u+201c>and voted how they felt deep down, they would go with trump.<u+201d> <u+2014>bob davis sara finger, executive director of the wisconsin alliance for women<u+2019>s health ms. finger, the executive director of the bipartisan nonprofit organization in madison, watched the results come in, arm-in-arm with her 6-year-old daughter, layla. she put layla to sleep around<u+00a0>10 p.m. local time<u+00a0>when it became clear mr. trump would win. <u+201c>i explained to her why she needed to turn off the tv and go to bed, that we weren<u+2019>t going to see this historic moment that i had hoped to share with her,<u+201d> ms. finger said. ms. finger eventually dozed off as well then woke again at<u+00a0>1:30 a.m.<u+00a0>to see the results become official. <u+201c>i saw the news and was then paralyzed for the rest of the night.<u+201d><u+00a0>she got <u+201c>maybe an hour<u+201d> of sleep, from<u+00a0>5 a.m. to 6 a.m. this morning, upon learning that mr. trump had won, her daughter asked ms. finger, <u+201c>how does a bully get elected president of the united states?<u+201d> today, ms. finger<u+2019>s mood has been fluctuating <u+201c>minute by minute,<u+201d> thinking about the ramifications of the election on women nationally and in her home state of wisconsin. she is also trying to understand why other women voted for mr. trump, knowing about the language he has used to describe them and the numerous sexual-assault allegations against him. <u+201c>how many strong, socially minded women who care deeply about their own reproductive rights cast their votes for trump anyway?<u+201d> ms. finger said. <u+2014>will connors david green, team leader at a general motors co. assembly plant in lordstown, ohio david green woke up at<u+00a0>1:30 a.m.<u+00a0>local time to find that mr. trump had won ohio and knew mr. trump would likely win the presidency. he brewed a pot of dunkin<u+2019> donuts coffee and ate a few oatmeal cookies sent over by his mother as he watched nbc on the television in his kitchen while he got ready for work. before he went to bed at<u+00a0>8 p.m., mr. green <u+201c>really thought hillary would win<u+201d> and was hopeful the numbers would flip in favor of mrs. clinton. but as a lifelong ohio resident, he figured if mr. trump won the state, <u+201c>there goes the presidency.<u+201d> gm<u+2019>s lordstown complex assembles chevrolet cruze small cars and is well known for its historic clashes between workers and management. it is the type of product mr. trump has vowed to protect from outsourcing to low-cost countries. the car is also built in mexico, but workers in ohio have made several compromises to keep a version of the model in the u.s. mr. green and his co-workers quietly watched mr. trump<u+2019>s victory speech, and he noticed the concerned looks on the faces of the unionized tradesmen. mr. green has a long history with the united auto workers, including time as president of a local union office in northeast ohio<u+2019>s mahoning valley at the time gm was restructuring and requesting bailouts from the treasury department. over the last decade, mr. green earned a master<u+2019>s degree with the help of gm financing under the union contract. mr. green, a resident of youngstown, was proud that his county voted for mrs. clinton but wondered if he could have done more and talked to more people about supporting the democratic candidate. later that morning, he learned that 1,245 of his colleagues would be laid off due to a shortage of demand for the cruze . <u+2014>adrienne roberts edward oberkrom, a retiree and a plaintiff in lawsuit against trump university mr. oberkrom is suing trump university, mr. trump<u+2019>s real-estate school, for allegedly cheating him out of $25,000 he spent on a 2009 seminar. still, mr. oberkrom described himself as a staunch trump supporter, who watched the returns from the edge of his couch in the family room of his st. louis county home. <u+201c>that was business, and it didn<u+2019>t work out the way i thought it was going to, but that<u+2019>s a separate issue from the politics of this country, which are far more important,<u+201d> he said. mr. oberkrom, who had thought mr. trump a lost cause, recalled his mounting excitement as fox news projected his candidate the winner in ohio, and then when he learned from fox that the new york times prognosticators were putting mr. trump<u+2019>s chances north of 80%. <u+201c>it was like a new start. in my lifetime, most of the people who got elected owed somebody or something,<u+201d> mr. oberkrom said. mr. trump may be unpolished, but he <u+201c>doesn<u+2019>t owe any politicians or political parties anything,<u+201d> he said. <u+2014>joe palazzolo roberto benavides, undocumented <u+201c>dreamer<u+201d> mr. benavides, a student living in the u.s. illegally who is part of the <u+201c>dreamer<u+201d> movement , watched the election returns with fellow activists and organizers at a union hall in miramar, fla.,<u+00a0>on tuesday<u+00a0>evening. early on, the mood was jovial. many had taken part in get-out-the-vote activities and felt hopeful about strong early-voting numbers in south florida that suggested mrs. clinton would perform well there. then she started losing key states. some began leaving around<u+00a0>10:30 p.m.<u+00a0>or<u+00a0>11 p.m.<u+00a0>local time. others kept watching and wept. mr. benavides fielded a call from his mother, who, like his 16-year-old brother, also is undocumented. she said she was worried that mr. trump was leading in electoral votes. <u+201c>i said, <u+2018>we<u+2019>ve got to wait. we<u+2019>ll see how it goes,<u+2019><u+201d> he said. the family came from peru on tourist visas in 2002 and then overstayed, becoming unauthorized. but mr. benavides has benefited from an obama administration policy that allows some undocumented youth to stay in the u.s. and obtain work permits. as mrs. clinton fell further behind<u+00a0>tuesday<u+00a0>night, mr. benavides worried about his family. if mr. trump abolishes the current administration<u+2019>s immigration policies, his brother may never secure legal status and never be able to attend college. his mother will have to live through <u+201c>a trump presidency that could very well target her,<u+201d> mr. benavides said. wednesday<u+00a0>afternoon, mr. benavides headed to a comic-book store to try to escape reality a bit. that night, he was planning to meet with a group of students involved in immigrant-rights work, as they brace for a dramatically different landscape under a trump administration. <u+201c>we<u+2019>re going to start planning for that,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>we probably will get calls for deportation campaigns.<u+201d> <u+2014>arian campo-flores jason wallace, assistant principal at medrano middle school in dallas mr. wallace said he awoke wednesday morning to news that mr. trump had won, and he knew it would be a long day. he suspected that some students at medrano middle school, where he works, would be upset. mr. wallace said 95% of the student in the dallas school are hispanic, and many of them feared mr. trump would make good on his primary-campaign pledge to have 11 million illegal immigrants deported. <u+201c>our student body is directly affected by some of the policies that have been projected by our president-elect,<u+201d> mr. wallace said. he arrived at school to find that teachers had already swarmed into action, setting up activities and assignments to get students to talk about their concerns. language-arts teachers asked students to write about their feelings after the election, their hopes for the future, and how their school can support them, he said. <u+201c>some classes were good, others were very concerned,<u+201d> mr. wallace said. <u+201c>my message was, <u+2018>your families came over here for you to get an education, and that<u+2019>s what you need to be doing. let the adults deal with the scary stuff.<u+2019> i got a little emotional talking to these kids.<u+201d> <u+2014>tawnell d. hobbs sakina turner, african-american cafeteria worker by the time ms. turner and her friends showed up to what was supposed to be a victory party for mrs. clinton in the ballroom of a las vegas casino, it was already past 10:30 p.m. on the east coast. the mood in the room, which began filling up with volunteers like ms. turner, was grim, with many people staring vacantly at the television screens, which played silently, in disbelief. ms. turner and her friends cut colorful figures in the somber room, as they were decked out in white jackets with sparkly images of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s face and the slogan <u+201c>i<u+2019>m with her<u+201d> painted across the back. as results came on the tv screen for states that were already presumed safe for mrs. clinton, including hawaii, ms. turner and her friends erupted in loud cheers and danced. they remained optimistic until late into the night. moments before mr. trump was to take the stage to give a victory speech, ms. turner decided she had had enough and left the room. others who stayed in the room began sobbing loudly. ms. turner said she was thinking about her mother, who was a civil-rights activist in new york, and a cousin of hers who had recently passed away who had been at the march on washington in 1963. ms. turner said she perceived the wave of trump support in the country as a message that maybe she as an african-american woman didn<u+2019>t belong in it. still, she smiled and said she was determined to remain optimistic. after all, nevada, her adopted state, had turned solidly democratic blue this election. <u+2014>alexandra berzon justin smith, sheriff of larimer county, colo. sheriff smith had a gut feeling the night could go either way. on the one hand, the deluge of polls in recent weeks had him thinking that mrs. clinton would win easily. but sheriff smith kept remembering all the trump rallies he had attended in recent months and all the new faces he had seen there, people he had never noticed at the countless republican events he had been to over the years. a political junkie, gun-rights proponent and trump supporter, he thought about all this as he drove through the night across the colorado plains in his sheriff<u+2019>s vehicle, first to an election watch party for a local state representative at a bowling alley in the town of windsor. glancing between the results trickling across televisions at the party and his cellphone, sheriff smith was primarily focused on local races he had been tracking. still, he couldn<u+2019>t help but notice that mr. trump seemed to be holding his own in florida and north carolina. <u+201c>it didn<u+2019>t register with me at that point where this was going,<u+201d> he said. soon, the sheriff hopped back into his suv and headed to a school in fort collins where another watch party was taking place, jumping between various am radio stations as he drove to hear the latest analysis. an hour later, he decided to swing by an event at a local senior center put on by the larimer county republican party. fox news blared from a big-screen tv that florida was now leaning toward mr. trump, and the sheriff felt the night starting to shift. <u+201c>i started seeing those numbers coming in, and it started to register that this thing was doable,<u+201d> he said. around 9 p.m. local time, sheriff smith went to check on his son, a campus security officer at colorado state university, who was working a watch party at the student center. students at the party, mostly clinton supporters, were growing despondent, the sheriff said, as results poured in showing mr. trump starting to surge. fifteen minutes later, realizing a trump win was in the works, sheriff smith drove home. he turned on the tv and began working his phone and computer, texting with friends and colleagues about what was unfolding. <u+201c>it was like holy bleep. this thing is lining up,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m one of those fools that spent like 31 days back in 2000 watching the news come in on the bush election. and so watching this come in, we just were waiting for the concession.<u+201d> not much later, sheriff smith watched mr. trump give his victory speech. around 3:30 a.m., the election in hand, sheriff smith poured himself a glass of bourbon on the rocks and allowed himself to celebrate. <u+2014>dan frosch
americans recount their reactions to donald trump<u+2019>s victory on election night - wsj
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