PORTLAND, Maine — Emotions are a mixed bag after any election; some voters are celebrating a victory and others consider the outcome a loss.
Yet, after former President Donald Trump's sweeping 2024 win, many people expressed a similar sense of surprise.
"I didn't expect it to be a blowout, especially in the swing states. He won a lot of the swing states," said Richard Carver, one of Donald Trump's supporters.
Carver is excited about Trump's economic plans. Those plans could have swung a lot of the voters in those swing states, especially younger ones.
"I believe that economics, along with immigration, drove the election results, and I think that's another reason why we saw such a massive amount of the youth," Deklin Fitzgerald, a student at the University of Southern Maine, said.
Fitzgerald added that he's worried about how Trump's win will affect some of the social issues he cares about. However, as a young person dealing with the high cost of living and inflation, he can see why Mr. Trump may have appealed to his demographic.
Not everyone understands that point of view, including Liam Collins, who studies economics at the University of Southern Maine.
"By looking at Donald Trump's policies, I don't see how it could benefit the country unless it benefits the very elite, like the top one percent. There is the biggest turnout, I feel, from young voters who are not educated on policies. They say, 'Well Trump's policy was better,' but they don't realize why it was better. It was a different time, different economy," Collins said.
Other younger voters believe the outcome of this election doesn't represent their generation's values, a goal that could have been achieved if more turned up to vote.
"I experienced a lot of people proudly telling me before the election they were not voting and I was very disappointed with that. Even if you don't want to vote for the presidential candidate, there's still too many issues on the state and local level that matter. We need to vote more locally and statewide and come together so stuff like this in the future doesn't happen," Audrey Montalvo, another USM student, said.
It seems both sides are looking forward but with very different ideas of what it may hold.
"I think we're looking for some big changes and he seems like he's the right candidate for those changes," Carver said.
For other Maine voters, they want to be more specific. "Change is definitely a good thing for the most part, but you have to vote for people of principle. The traditional criticism of democracy is it's the triumph of opinion over knowledge. That comes directly from Plato and I think often times that's the case, especially during this election," Robert Stevenson said.
Only time will tell if the problems that brought people to the polls will turn into the policy change they wish to see.