Post-election dispatches from across a divided Minnesota

Minnesota's map of election results is mostly red. Hillary Clinton may have snagged the state's 10 electoral votes, but she did so by only about 42,700 votes — a razor-thin margin for a heavily Democratic state.

The only pockets of blue showed up in the state's Arrowhead region, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Rochester. Everywhere else belonged to president-elect Donald Trump by Wednesday morning.

Donald Trump carried several rural Minnesota counties with more than 70 percent of the vote — and also won in 19 rural counties that voted for Democratic President Barack Obama four years ago.

MPR News reporters from across the state surveyed the reactions in their communities Wednesday morning. Some people they talked to weren't surprised by the former reality TV star's presidential win. Others were fearful he might follow up on his promises of mass deportation once he's in office. The reactions were as varied as the issues Minnesotans hold dear.

Here are some post-election snapshots from across Minnesota.

Bemidji: "I was pretty much Trump from the start."

Minnesota's 10 electoral votes may have gone to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, but voters in northern Minnesota supported Donald Trump by a wide margin.

Just before 6 a.m. Wednesday, a few hours after Donald Trump became president-elect, several men sip black coffee at Pete's Place South, a truck stop diner on the rural outskirts of Bemidji. My arrival slightly quiets their talking and laughing.

They wear camo baseball caps and work boots. They order greasy breakfasts. They're farmers and local business owners, mostly. Some are retired. Their wives don't allow bacon and eggs at home anymore because of cholesterol, so they come to Pete's Place, a decades-long tradition.

This particular morning, they're in a great mood because Trump won.

"I was pretty much Trump from the start," said John Magnuson, who lives outside of Bemidji. "I mean, he's a bit of a loose cannon, but this election has been very entertaining, and I think the presidency is going to be very entertaining, also."

Magnuson has company in his support of Trump, but not from two at the table, Democrats who don't feel much like talking.

The waitress laughs as she pours coffee. Unlike many journalists and political experts, the early morning diner clientele is not surprised by the way election night turned out.

"If you look at the size of his rallies all the time, they were large," explained area resident Jim Lyle.

Northern Minnesota came out in force for Trump. He took nearly two-thirds of the vote in the 7th and 8th Congressional districts, which make up the northern half of the state.

Beltrami County, which supported President Barack Obama in 2012 by a 2,000-vote margin, went to Trump this time, by almost the same margin.

"They're sick and tired of the establishment," Magnuson said. "They're sick and tired of the condescending politicians telling them what to do, what to think, what to wear, what to drive. These people that elected Trump, they're all independent thinkers, farmers, businessmen. Or they just get dirt under their nails, and they're sick and tired of everyone keeping them under their thumb."

When Magnuson talks about people with dirt on their hands, he means people like himself and his friends. He used to run the Bemidji waste transfer station.

Now he's a farmer. It was people like him who elected Trump, and he says, they did it in part because Trump promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

"I think what did Clinton in is everybody opened their health care premiums in the last two weeks, like my family did, and everything went up 60 to 70 percent," Magnuson said.

The group disbands when the sun rises. There are corn stalks to be plowed under, and wood to be chopped before winter.

— John Enger | MPR News

Moorhead: A wait-and-see approach

The 7th Congressional District, in western Minnesota, leans Republican.

Mitt Romney won the area in 2012 by 32,000 votes. Donald Trump did much better, with a 103,000-vote margin this year. And several counties in the district that went for Democratic President Barack Obama four years ago flipped into the Trump column this year, including Clay County.

Most voters I approached were not eager to talk about the election. Ambivalence seemed to be a theme, with most people expressing little enthusiasm for their presidential vote.

Near Barnesville, a farming community of about 2,500 people that's 20 minutes down I-94 from Moorhead, big piles of harvested corn on the edge of town attest to a bumper crop.

At Rube's barber shop on the town's main street, insurance agent Terry Olson was getting a trim. The election was about change, he said.

How did he vote? "I voted American."

Olson wants Trump to pay attention to international relationships, because the economy here depends on strong export markets for farm crops to countries like China.

"I think now it's a world economy, and we all have to get along. It used to be just the United States, but now it's not," Olson said. "We ship our soybeans and corn all over the world and we have to get along with those people, to at least work together. I guess we don't necessarily have to like one another, but we have to work together."

A couple blocks down the street, Ken Kolding was leaving the post office. He generally votes Republican, and he voted for Donald Trump this time. But it wasn't an easy choice, he said.

"I hope that he's able to do what he said he can," Kolding said.

What Kolding wants most from a Trump presidency is conservative Supreme Court justices, he said. "I felt that he'd probably, I don't know, make a better choice when it comes to our Supreme Court judges."

The 81-year-old says he can't recall an election as unusual as this one, and he's tired of campaigns that seem endless. On a downtown Moorhead sidewalk, I met Shannon Schlee, who had just voted in her first election. The 19-year-old Minnesota State University Moorhead student said she cast her vote for Trump because he brings a fresh perspective.

Schlee wants the new president-elect to shake things up in Washington.

"I just want him to change things," she said. "I think people are a little too sensitive these days, and I don't know, we need something different. I just feel like America's in a rut."

Voters here were almost evenly split between Clinton and Trump, so I also ran into several Clinton supporters.

Diane England, 55, from Moorhead, says she cast her vote for Clinton — reluctantly.

"I wanted to vote against Trump. Not that I was real thrilled with Hillary, either," she said. "I really felt this election was a farce. But we got what we got, so let's hope that it's going to be the best."

England says she worries about how the president-elect will handle international conflicts, and that he'll ignore climate change.

"But as far as like bringing jobs back to America, I'm all for that," she said. "I would like to see these poor economies get some help. But I guess we're just going to just have to wait and see what's all going to go down."

That wait-and-see attitude is a common theme. One Trump supporter who refused to give his name or be interviewed, said to come back and talk to him in two years and he'd share what he thinks.

Outside a Moorhead restaurant, Al Knapper said he voted for Clinton, but he's somewhat optimistic about a Trump presidency. Knapper says he just wants to see the gridlock of the past eight years to end.

"As much as I hated to see it go that way, maybe it's a good thing," he said, "just maybe something can be done now. Before, it was always 'no' to everything. "

Like a lot of voters I talked to here, Knapper said he'll reserve judgment until he sees what a Trump presidency delivers.

— Dan Gunderson | MPR News

Worthington: Hope for jobs and fear of deportation

Around this southwestern Minnesota city surrounded by farmland, some residents hope President-Elect Trump concentrates on jobs.

"I feel like a lot of the people are trying to find jobs and don't really have that opportunity," said area resident Karstin Brown. "And I'm hoping that he can open up doors for a lot of people, so that they can get on their feet and get going."

And Latino residents here are wondering if Trump will act on his pledge to deport immigrants in the country illegally.

Maria Parga of Worthington, a citizen who owns a restaurant and grocery store, said Trump should let job-holding undocumented immigrants stay in the country.

"If he has to remove people, I hope he have a little bit of mercy," Parga said, "and be nice with the people who are working honestly."

— Mark Steil | MPR News