Area Americans react to election
Saturday night was a time to celebrate for Adam Hawkins and he went and bought a bottle of champagne to mark the occasion, knowing Joe Biden had been declared the U.S. president-elect after defeating Donald Trump.
Four days after the first votes were being counted, Biden locked up Pennsylvania and Hawkins could finally relax, knowing the vote he sent to his Seattle home in King County helped make a difference.
The 27-year-old UNBC glacial geology doctoral student was waiting to hear Biden’s speech Saturday before jumping on board a Zoom call with his family back home. He considered himself lucky to have spent the past five years in Prince George.
“Coming from a family with a lot of strong women, the guy that Trump was, he represented a certain stepping backward and not exactly a step forward for the country,” said Hawkins. “It’s pretty remarkable and certainly historic to see the first female and first person of colour to be the vice-president elect for the U.S. Some of the House and Senate seats we have some of the first (trans-gender) people and an increase in the number of First Nations representatives in the House. It’s great to see that increase in diversity.”
Chris Morgan, a UNBC natural resources and environmental studies graduate student, is from Wisconsin, one of the last states to go to Biden, after first going Republican red in the preliminary vote count.
Morgan said he was blindsided by how close the vote actually was.
“We expected a serious rebuke of Trump and right wing nationalism and the fact it was so close, even with the victory, is bit disheartening,” Morgan said. It’s still a disappointment that very close to half the country, despite all we’ve been through the past four years, still support this man. He clearly wasn’t a president for the entire country, just a lack of civility and compassion. Trump was loyal to his supporters, for the most part, and didn’t necessarily care about anybody else. At the very least, Biden will be a sense of calm, but if we’re able to flip the senate blue as well there’s a lot more good he can do.”