Growing up in Hong Kong, Lily Hong Campbell idolized Donald Trump as a businessman. On Tuesday, she had her first opportunity to vote for him.
Campbell, a seasonal Juneau resident for 11 years and an American citizen since 2004, cast her first-ever presidential vote for a man who inspired her to enter business.
She’s been successful enough since then to afford a $2,000 flight back to Juneau for Election Day and an opportunity to work the polls in the Lemon Creek precinct.
“I want to vote. I want to volunteer. I want to be here for the country,” she said Tuesday morning. “It’s very exciting for the country.”
Backers of Hillary Clinton might not agree — after all, their candidate was the one who lost.
“We need to get Ju-Ju; we need to change the vibes in here,” called Nancy Courtney, chairwoman of the Tongass Democrats, to a tense and sparse crowd in a back room of the Rockwell restaurant about 6:30 p.m.
The Tongass Democrats had booked the room for a celebration of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party nationwide, but few seemed in the mood.
“This isn’t what I was hoping to see, but let’s see how this all plays out,” Courtney said at the time.
Later, as the result became apparent, she offered her best-guess analysis.
“Obviously, there’s a very angry electorate that wants change,” she said.
David Woods wasn’t angry, but he did want change. When he voted about 11 a.m., he was one of many at the Juneau ferry terminal who cast a vote for Trump.
“He may not be perfect,” Woods said of Trump, “but maybe this will shake things up and it’ll all work out.
At Northern Light United Church, polling place for the Juneau No. 2 precinct, Staci Malaby brought her 6-year-old daughter Ella and her stroller-borne son Laney to the polls.
“I thought it was fun,” Ella said of the experience.
Asked who she picked for president, Staci looked to her daughter.
“The girl,” Staci said.
“It was actually me that picked her,” Ella piped up.
Staci added that she felt Clinton was the most qualified among the two principal candidates.
Likewise, Nicky Love ─ also voting at Northern Light ─ picked Clinton.
She brought her son, a third-grader, to the polls “to show him how easy and important (voting) is.”
Also with her was her 4-year-old daughter Sally.
“For me, there’s always a candidate that’s a definite no,” Love said of her presidential choice. “I voted for Hillary because I don’t want Donald.”
At the Lemon Creek polling station inside an Alaska Electric and Light garage, Campbell said she’s been a fan of Trump for a long time.
“I watched (Trump) ever since I was young,” she said. “I wanted to learn something from this guy.”
He’s someone who understands business, she added. “The money doesn’t just come in. You have to go and get it.”
Campbell followed that lesson, becoming successful enough that she was able to fly back to Juneau from her winter home, even though it cost more than $2,000 and she had to ask a favor from her boss.
“If you’re working for the country, then yes,” she recalled him saying when she described being a poll worker.
Trump had some controversial moments during the campaign, not least when he described his attitude toward women and fame.
Campbell was asked if those comments bothered her.
“No. He’s a human being,” she said, explaining that people can express the same idea differently. “Some people are sensitive; some people are not sensitive. … It’s his personality.”
John Davis, voting in the Mendenhall Valley for Libertarian Gary Johnson, had a different take.
“They’re both evil,” he said of Clinton and Trump.
