Trunp vote was fight against authority says Sunderland expert on US history

Donald Trump as he makes his acceptance speech in New York following his victory to become he 45th president of the United States. Picture by Press Association.

Dr Kevin Yuill had predicted Democrat Hillary Clinton would claim victory, with the polls also putting her ahead, but instead, Republican Donald Trump has become the 45th President of the United States after winning 278 of the 496 college votes.

The expert, who works at Sunderland University as its senior lecturer in American history, watched on as the results came in.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pictured during the first presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

He believes pollsters have had their day when it comes to predicting the outcome of votes, because people believe they will be attacked for giving their views to the surveys.

Dr Yuill said: “I think they voted against the establishment.

“I don’t think they think Trump is amazing or skilled, but at the same time I think people understood how much people loathed Hillary Clinton and one thing I have really disagreed with is when people have said it’s a whitelash.

“I don’t think that is the case.

Dr Kevin Yuill, senior lecturer in American History at the University of Sunderland.

“The people who have voted for Trump are the same people who voted for Obama in 2008, and Obama was a big disappointment for so many people.

“I don’t think they are racist or misogynist, if anything the Clinton campaign has been disastrous.

“She tried to make this a women’s issue, but I don’t think people voted for her because she’s a woman and Trump is a man.

“In his speech, Trump seemed conciliatory. He’s played as dirty as possible and he won, and we can only hope he’s going to rise about that is not going to go through with some of the frankly idiotic suggestions that he made. “The Republicans are rushing back to him and it’s very difficult to say what’s going to happen.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as she arrived to vote at her polling place in Chappaqua, N.Y.

“He’s probably going to appoint some women and he’s probably going to appoint some people that were very hostile towards him in the run up to the election.

“The Republicans will maintain control of the house and I think there’s going to be some problems if he goes through with some of the things he said he was going to.

“We certainly live in interesting times.”

Dr Yuill, who is from Winnipeg in Canada and has lived in the UK for 33 years, believes the result, along with the EU referendum outcome in the UK, reflects wide unrest across the world.

“I don’t think this is an Anglo-American situation, I think its a rejection of people’s authority and shows they distrust the establishment,” he said.

“People looked up to them and saw then as their betters, but that’s changed.”

But he added: “I don’t think that Trump will be the worst president because there are so many contenders.

“I think that probably goes to Warren G Harding who was the very worst and it was said at the time the best thing he did in office was to die.”