As the results of the 2016 presidential election were revealed, the state of Maryland, unlike the majority of the country, swung left with 60.5% of the votes going to Hillary Clinton. Upon hearing the results of the election, after which Republican candidate Donald Trump was announced as the president-elect, joy and positivity were hard to find on many of the faces of first time voters in predominantly liberal Prince George’s County.

The majority sentiment felt by students at Eleanor Roosevelt High School has seemed to be disappointment. 12th grader Diana Dang said “I’m highly disappointed” and went on to say that she’s grateful that the election has “revealed how many racist and ignorant bigots are in the country,” which she felt must be revealed to “effectively make a change.” However, she said she is still “angry that someone like Trump, who spews nothing but hate, could be elected to represent our nation.” Senior Anders Croft said he believes that “America made a mistake” in electing Trump, going on to say that “everyone was fired up for change, but they ended up electing a president who has no kind of experience.”

People across the country that voted for Trump, must have seen this coming; and many aren’t nearly as upset with the results of the election as people from Prince George’s County, MD.  

Hillary Clinton ultimately won the state of Maryland, but only the counties surrounding Prince George’s County, with the addition of Baltimore City and Baltimore County, got her vote (Howard, Montgomery, Anne Arundel and Charles Counties). The denser populations of the generally more liberal counties allowed for a democratic win.

A false sense of security was given to the people in Prince George’s County and the surrounding areas because of both the more liberal east coast, and the liberal bubble of Maryland. Many Marylanders, such as Tina Brown, a teacher at Howard County Public Schools, felt “shocked and disgusted” upon learning that learning that Donald Trump was the President-elect on Wednesday morning. Torri Jackson, a college student attending Baltimore’s Coppin State University, said that the rest of America has elected an “immature, disrespectful man as president,” and that “people took this election as a joke and the results showed that.”