Students and senior academics at the University of Cambridge reacted with overwhelming shock and regret after the billionaire real estate developer and TV personality triumphed in the US presidential election on Tuesday night, beating his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Around 800 undergraduates gathered at the Cambridge Union to watch as the results were announced into the early hours. The debating chamber became a hotbed of support for Clinton, with loud ‘boos’ erupting at Republican wins.

President of the Cambridge Union Asia Lambert, summarised the mood of most members: “I am deeply saddened by the result. I cannot understand how people have elected someone with such an abhorrent record against women, minorities, those with disabilities and the LGBT+ community. I can’t help but feel like this is a huge step back.”

The outcome was still uncertain when the Union closed at 4:00am, but mounting concern, as Trump secured a swathe of key states, silenced ironic chants of “Make America Great Again”.

Connor McCabe, President of the Cambridge University American Society, also lent his voice to those condemning the result: “I am extremely jarred. Donald Trump has consistently demonstrated a lack of respect for significant portions of our population. Trump does not represent my America.”

While some students expressed their horror at waking up to the victory speech from Trump HQ, Politics lecturer Dr Chris Bickerton said he “wasn’t particularly surprised”.

The Queens’ Fellow attributed the success of the property tycoon to a “void between politicians and voters”, alongside the “power of populist and technocratic discourses which are the products of this void,” embodied by Trump and Clinton respectively.

Dr Bickerton also drew attention to the “sort of complacency on the part of the liberal establishment that we saw before the Brexit vote,” arguing that it “may be why Trump’s victory has come as such a shock”.

His colleague from Churchill College, Dr Peter Sloman, meanwhile, described the verdict as “extraordinary” and a “striking reminder that although the United States is becoming younger and more diverse every year, older white voters are still a major force”.

Dr Sloman compared Clinton’s failure to find “a way of reaching voters who felt threatened by globalisation and cultural change” with Obama’s “great achievement” of mobilising black and Latino voters while winning typically conservative states like Wisconsin.

Student debate ceded to condemnation and consolation, however, as an ‘Anti-Trump Solidarity Event’ assembled in the CUSU Lounge yesterday.

Corpus Christi Social Anthropologist Amiya Nagpal, who established the safe space, explained that she “wanted to organise something that could be a site of solidarity for those who feel personally affected”.

Nagpal added that it was not a matter of exacerbated Week Five blues, but rather the “knock-on effects for the rest of the world”.

“I woke up this morning afraid not for those in the US, but for the rest of us, for the ethnic minorities and LGBT+ folk who will be harmed. This is a time to be justly angry, scared, and sad”, she concluded.

Dr Aaron Rapport, an International Relations lecturer from the same college, echoed some of those sentiments, citing the Republican control of the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court. “We are about to see whether the US is a country ruled by laws or men”, he said, and “whether the Republic can protect against tyrannies of the majority.”

Despite intense suspicion about his policies and apparent prejudices, Cambridge this week demonstrated that President-elect Donald Trump has kept his promise to stun the liberal, educated elite