Grief, anger, disbelief: Trump voters face Biden's victory

When Joan Martin heard that Joe Biden h been declared winner of presidential election, retired nurse and avowed supporter of President Donald Trump was deeply unsettled. To steel herself, she thought about how her household weared Hurricane Katrina when it battered her hometown of Picayune, Mississippi, in 2005.

As storm blew toward town, Martin rushed out into her yard to carry her 85 show chickens to safety. Outside, howling winds lashed her family’s barn, lifting edges of roof off its moorings.

“ next day y ( chickens) were very concerned about changes in yard — we h trees down,” said Martin, 79. “y were very eyes-wide. But within two days, y said, ‘Oh, yeah, we can deal with this,’ and y did. So I have to follow ir le.”

Across country, many of 71.9 million people who voted for Trump — especially his loyal, passionate base — are working through turbulent emotions in wake of his loss. Grief, anger and shock are among feelings expressed by supporters who assumed he would score a rock-solid victory — by a slim margin, maybe easily, perhaps even by a landslide.

re is also denial. Many are skeptical of results, saying y don't trust media's race call for Biden, way election officials counted ballots, entire voting system in America. ir views echo unsupported claims Trump has me since Election Day.

This despite fact that state officials and election experts say 2020 election unfolded smoothly across country and without widespre irregularities. Trump and or Republicans have pointed to isolated problems, but many are explained by human error. Many of Trump campaign's legal challenges have been dismissed in court. And with Biden leing Trump by solid margins in key battleground states, ne of those issues would have any impact on outcome of election.

Still, any fragment of possibility is eugh for some Trump supporters to reject reality, feel aggrieved and rebuff Biden's calls for unity. ir comments lay out political challenge ahe for president-elect: longer Trump casts doubt on legitimacy of Biden’s win, harder it will be for new president to unite a riven country, as he has said he wants to do.

“I’m really t in a live and let live mood," said Daniel Echebarria, a 39-year-old school teacher who lives in Sparks, Neva.

Echebarria said he was surprised by election results, questioned some of numbers and would like to see president continue with his legal challenges. But he also said he doesn’t consider result “a big rig job” and doesn’t want to see Trump deny results into January. Still, he's t feeling particularly united, eir.

Echebarria said he believes Democrats never gave Trump a chance to govern and cites Russia investigation and impeachment trial as examples.

“I think that president was prohibited from getting a lot of his nda done because so much time and effort h to be put against defending against se," he said.

Several Trump supporters interviewed by Associated Press in recent days were rankled by widespre celebrations of Biden's win in liberal cities. y saw hypocrisy in public, outdoor garings after Democrats condemned Trump supporters for attending big rallies — some were held indoors — during coronavirus pandemic.

“S” is how Lori Piotrowski sums up her mood. president of Boulder City Republican Women club in Neva at first sounds much like any or deflated supporter.

“You always want your candidate to win. You’re a little let down. You worked hard," she said.

But Piotrowski also described herself as “extremely” surprised by result of election. She's struggling to reconcile her version of campaign with results. She says she saw so many ims of large Trump rallies in final days. On a recent drive from Las Vegas to Re — through rural, GOP-leaning Neva — she saw only Trump signs and banners, she said.

“ votes didn’t reflect that amount of enthusiasm. I just find that very surprising,” she said. ”It makes me wonder.”

Biden won Neva by racking up votes in state’s urban areas.

Piotrowski, like many Trump supporters, wants to see Trump’s legal challenges continue. A massive surge in mail voting and slower tally of those votes me vote count look unfamiliar and strange. Piotrowski said it concerns her that races were called with so many ballots outstanding, although that is often case.

“It just seems to me that re’s a lot of things that can be improved in system so that people felt more confident,” she said.

She said she hasn’t listened to any of Biden’s speeches since Election Day.

Za Awng, of Aurora, Coloro, is also suspicious of vote count.

Awng, who came to U.S. as a refugee from Myanmar, has embraced Trump as a politician who echoes his conviction that China’s influence in world must be sharply curtailed, and as one who Awng says shares his Christian values.

This spring, Awng lost his job as a chef for two months when pandemic forced closure of restaurant where he works. Back at work w, he credits Trump with working hard over last four years to improve ecomy. It was hard for him to grasp how president could lose.

“I believe re is something wrong," he said, pointing to what appear to be Democratic shifts in tally but were a result of mail-in votes being counted later. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to cast mail-in ballots after Trump baselessly declared mail voting fraudulent.

“I hope re will be counting again and maybe it will change,” he said.

Even in less tense times, Jim Czebiniak seeks solace in hours of evening prayer. So when Czebiniak, an avid Trump supporter who lives in upstate community of Kx, New York, heard that Biden h been declared winner, he turned once again to worship in a search for answers.

“First of all, I went to Lord and I asked him why, why is it going like this? Lord said, ‘Because I’m working on stuff. Just relax and let things work mselves out,'" said Czebiniak, 72, who is semi-retired from a career writing custom software.

“To quote what’s-his-name from Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger: ’You can’t always get what you want,'” Czebiniak said.

Still, Czebiniak said he is far from rey to accept a Biden presidency. He cited several unsupported claims me by Trump campaign.

“ election isn’t really called yet,” Czebiniak said, days after all major U.S. television networks and AP examined vote counts in key states to declare Biden overall winner. “I don’t trust anything that’s going on re with all this vote counting."

Unlike many Trump supporters, Michelle Sassouni wasn't shocked by outcome of election or aftermath.

29-year-old in Tampa, Florida, is an active member of her region's Young Republicans Club and a co-host of a video show, “Moderately Outrd.” She floated idea of Biden's mination, and potential to win, months ago.

“Everyone laughed at me on show,” she said. With many liberal friends, she h seen strong opposition to Trump. She even understands it somewhat. “I don’t love everything he does, but I voted for him because I’m a Republican.”

But Sassouni doesn't see danger in Trump's vow to fight results in court. People need to be reassured of results, and a court fight might give m confidence, she said.

“If you voted for Joe Biden, wouldn’t you want to kw that he won fair and square so that re's t this cloud over his he?” she asked. “If half country believes re was some sort of election tampering, n that creates distrust in system, that creates distrust in Western democracy as a whole.”

Martin, retiree in Mississippi, says she's planning to resume her daily life, tending to her animals and avoiding talking about country’s change in leership as a way to deal with stress and trepidation she feels.

“I’ll go out in yard to check and talk to my chickens and say my old-fashioned hymns and get by,” she said.

(Im credit: AP)