Donald Trump’s victory is met by tears, anger and numb disbelief in Democrat-leaning South Florida

‘I felt crumbled’. Clinton supporters, especially minority voters, struggle to comprehend what happened

Wendy Rios was in her hair salon on in South Beach, Florida, on Wednesday morning when she spotted a friend walking by outside. She had to dash out to talk to him. Grieving can be easier sometimes when it’s shared. “What happened? What happened?” she yelled after him.

A native of Honduras, she’d begun her day with tears, overwhelmed by sadness as she grasped that Donald Trump’s election victory the night before was for real. For Stephanie Santos, whose parents are from Puerto Rico, it was anger that struck first. She began swearing at her television. “I was infuriated. I was cursing him out through the news,” she said.

Possibly nowhere in the land was the despair at Ms Clinton’s shocking loss more profound than in South Florida, which has not just been a bastion of Democrat support for decades but is also home to millions of immigrants to America, many of whom had felt personally affronted by Mr Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign, smearing Mexicans and promising a border wall.

As election day came nearer, officials with the Clinton campaign were daring to predict that their candidate would secure the state of Florida, with its trove of 29 Electoral College votes, counting on an expected surge of Latino participation they thought they were seeing in early voting patterns.

But in the end, it wasn’t quite so. Exit polling showed that only 65 per cent of Latinos supported her nationwide, while 29 per cent gave their votes to Donald Trump. That was a far cry from what had been advertised. In 2012, President Obama won 71 per cent of the Hispanic vote, while Romney got 27 per cent.

“I am totally upset about Florida voting for him, that’s what shocked me the most,” said MJA, the name she goes by, a branding consulting and a Latina. “I thought we were more Team Clinton here, but apparently not. I guess there are not as many Latinos in America as we thought.”

With red-dyed long hair, MJA, 31, said she was worried now too about the reaction when she travels overseas where people in many countries were already accustomed to speaking ill of America. “Now they have reason for it,” she said. “They will say,‘'look who we have running our country’.”

“It is sad that Americans have elected him which means there is so much hate and discrimination in their hearts they have just hidden and never really went away from the sixties,” offered Dominican-born Maria Sofia Rivera, 47, consoling herself with an early lunch at a small Salvadorian restaurant on Washington Avenue. “It was hidden because maybe there were embarrassed to speak about it.”

If she had anger it was reserved for the media which she accused of having misled her. “They pretty much said that she was was going to win. It leads me to believe that the media was pretty biased in reporting what was going on. I was pretty surprised watching TV last night that he had so much support. I don't know where these people are coming from that actually voted for him.”

Trump thanks his supporters on Wednesday

Part of her concern about Mr Trump is how he might respond to any threats against America from abroad. “I am kind of afraid that because he is so feisty that if someone were to bomb us pr do some terrorist act he would just bomb ‘em back because he is just out of control.”

“I felt like crumbled,” admitted Manny Walker, an African-American who voted for Mr Obama in the last two elections and had expected Ms Clinton to carry on his agenda, said of the election results. “It’s not good for the economy because he doesn't like foreign people – UK, Mexicans. He is not for the people, he is for the rich… it’s all fun and games for him.”

Ms Rios, though she had stopped crying a few hours earlier, was still nearly lost for words over what had happened. "I can’t believe it, I am in shock. I can’t believe we have that guy as our president. What kind of people go for him, I don't get it?” If the Latino vote in south Florida eventually failed Ms Clinton it is surely the fault of the Cuban-American community, she suggested. “You know Cubans they started saying that Hillary was a Communist.”

Taking a late breakfast of strong coffee and pastries, Guillermo Pupy, 64, himself a Cuban American who came to America when he was young, was not about admit to such, but he was one voice eager to report he had been celebrating since Mr Trump’s surprise win.

“I am very happy today,” Mr Pupy, a retired chef, said, “because he was going to be the best. I didn’t want Hillary Clinton administration, it would have been the same thing that put this country in the shit”. And, like many older-generation Cuban Americans in Miami, he has been infuriated by the steps Mr Obama has taken to close the diplomatic rift with Cuba’s regime.

“It’s a bad idea because they have no human rights over there. So why you want to open to them, why?”