American citizens living in Jesmond say the outcome of today’s United States election (5 November) between candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will have a sigificant influence on important decisions they have to make.

“If Trump is elected, I’ll probably choose to stay in the UK for as long as I’m able to,” said Sarah Besancon, who is living in Jesmond while studying journalism at Newcastle University. “If Harris is elected, I’m more likely to move back to the States.”

Originally from Alabama, Liz Powell has been living in Jesmond for 26 years. “If Trump gets in, I’m going to investigate giving up my citizenship,” she told JesmondLocal.

Ryan Sirmons, the minister of Jesmond United Reform Church, is from Florida. He did not wish to disclose his voting intention, but said: ”I’m a former American naval officer, so I love my country and I love its institutions. I’ve sworn on my life to protect and defend the constitution of the United States.

”Trump does a good job of tapping into the anger that resides within many Americans and how the world is, compared to how they think it should be. However, as Trump’s former chief of staff said about him, he is given to fascist tendencies. This leads to the undermining of democratic institutions, which I find disturbing as they are the bedrock of democracy.”

Powell and Besancon said they backed Harris mostly because she is not Trump. “Trump was a disastrous president, and I wouldn’t want him back,” said Powell. “Harris is probably far more liberal than most Americans. Americans tend to be more conservative and that might be a problem, though not necessarily for me.”

According to Powell, most of her family in the US are likely to vote Harris. “My sister’s husband is very much Republican, but he’s one of the voters Trump has lost,” she said. “He is refusing to vote because he says he can’t vote for Harris as she’s not Republican.”

“Trump has blatantly shown that he has misogynistic amd homophobic ideas, ideas,” said Besancon. “He’s a felon and I believe that he wouldn’t do anything good for our country.

“There have been so many cases of women dying because they couldn’t get an abortion, because a doctor knew that he would be put in jail if he performed an abortion. Harris is trying to change that. A woman should be allowed to get to help herself.”

Besancon said she and her friends back in the US are concerned about how Donald Trump might damage their country’s reputation and standing internationally. “The image of America itself isn’t great at all, but it could end up exponentially worse and we’re all afraid of what his policies would do to affect America’s relations with other countries.”

Sirmons said that he was concerned that the sense of community in the US had been “shredded in many ways”. He said: “As a Christian, I put my hope in God, not the US. What’s important at this point is building community as an alternative to the polarisation that we have seen.”