OHIO — Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, which will make him the 47th President of the United States.

Some Ohioans woke up today very happy, others very disappointed. 

Yet despite the hostility online and millions of social media posts with pointing fingers at each other, at Tommy’s Diner in Columbus, we found a registered Republican, George Wolf, a Democrat, Tom Young and an Independent, Diana Matthews, having breakfast together, smiling and laughing and getting along. 

Wolf said he was happy about the results of the election. 

“I wanted to have someone in charge that other countries fear,” Wolf said. “I really believe that with all of his faults, Donald Trump will make people march in line and we call the shots. I don’t want somebody weak in charge because I think it’ll put us into war… I’m just glad that we have somebody strong in charge.”

Tom Young, who also goes by Andy, said he felt disappointed because Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t spend more time discussing issues like immigration and inflation, and instead spent time talking about Donald Trump being a threat to democracy. 

“But I’m even more disappointed to see the vast number of people that voted for Donald Trump. And I understand people, people like him. But the ability to excuse, a lot of them, I believe, excuse the fact that he tried to steal an election, which is a fact and they won’t admit that,” Young said. “And I think my biggest problem with Donald Trump, and I’m sad to see him win, is every time he speaks, he seems to be nothing but hateful, calling somebody trash or garbage or the enemy within. So I am very disappointed, but I love my country. Donald Trump is the president, and we’ll get through this.”

Matthews, who most of the time votes Democrat, said she voted for Trump in this election because she felt he was the best candidate to “get things done.”

“I think he is the one that can get in there and get things done and I’m for that,” Matthews said. “It’s long overdue, and we have a lot of things to work on.”

Other Republicans said they voted for Trump because they thought he made a good case for the economy, the border and taxes. 

“I’m very happy with the election results. I think that America spoke last night and, some of the bigger issues that we went to the polls for was basically the economy and border control,” said Danny Vaughn, a registered Republican. “I’m classified as an uneducated male because I voted for Donald Trump, and that’s not the case with me. I’m a very educated guy. So I think sometimes the news media kind of skews things.”

Pete and Donna Miller felt it was important to note that just because you’re labeled a Republican or Democrat doesn’t mean everyone in the same party thinks alike. 

“I think we need to address those issues that people are really concerned about, the economy, the border. You know, it’s not about Republicans and Democrats. Those are just labels. It’s about the people,” said Pete Miller, a Republican. “I feel sorry for the immigration folks. We do a lot of traveling, and, you know, they’re just people. They want the same thing in the world for their lives, for their children that we want. And, you know, they’re leaving a terrible place. Fortunately, now they’re going to come to a better place than they might have come to before.”

His wife, Donna Miller, agreed. 

“The people I think that are coming over are being kind of used as pawns, and I think we need to stop that. But we also need them to come through legally, and we need to have a way that they can do that,” Donna Miller said. “It’s being passionate for people, and we need to help them as well as everybody else.”

Antuan Hairston, a registered Democrat, said he was disappointed in the results because he thinks the division in the country is in part a consequence of the negative rhetoric Trump has used to speak about people, including to his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. 

“It’s a little disheartening and I think I’m a little more disheartened because I feel like what I’ve seen is America is a little bit more polarized right now,” Hairston said. “I want us to get back to ‘Yeah, we can have our opposing ideologies, we can have our opposing ideas of which way we want America to go, but I think that we still need to be able to come together and work towards driving America forward.’ You know, what is going to save our state? I’m a teacher. What’s going to save our state of education? What’s going to save our rights as humans? How do we get that back as a people?”

Other Democrats weren’t as indifferent. Michael Moore said he thinks the results are a “nightmare.”

“I think the American people have made a horrible mistake,” Moore said. “The conman, Donald Trump, has fooled people into thinking that he cares about the people of America and cares about our Constitution, when actually all he cares about is himself.”

All the voters agreed that the people of America and politicians need to find a way to unify the division in our country. 

“We just have to keep on keeping on,” Moore said. “Everybody’s got to try to be good people, be good to one another, and just try to do the best we can.”

Wolf suggested, looking internally instead of pointing fingers. 

“Everybody can have an opinion and just because yours is different than mine, it doesn’t make you wrong,” Wolf said. “To blame it or to point fingers is not right. It starts with us getting along. I have to be able to respect your opinion. This country is too good of a country not to be friends with everybody, even if their opinion doesn’t agree with you.”

There are 8,159,946 registered voters in Ohio, and the Secretary of State’s office website shows that more than 5.6 million people voted in this year’s general election. 

More than 2.5 million of those people voted early. Of the early votes, a little more than a million were absentee ballots and more than 1.5 million were people voting early in person. 

About the same number of Ohioans voted in this year’s election as they did in 2020…Voter turnout in 2020 was 74%, according to the Ohio Legislative Service Commission and this year the secretary of state is showing it’s almost 70%.

The counties with the strongest voter turnout this year were Delaware County and Mercer County, with about 80% turning out to vote. The counties with the weakest voter turnout were Lucas and Lawrence counties, with about 61% turning out to vote.