'It's hard to watch from a distance': Americans living abroad in Canada keep close to U.S. election results

With the U.S. election dominating the domestic and international media cycle, even Americans who have moved north of the border still pay close attention to what unfolds before and after Nov. 5.

“It’s hard not to follow it; there’s just so much at stake right now based on how this election will go. It feels like there’s more at stake, like a monumental shift coming the day after the election is over,” Carly Evans, an American citizen living in Canada, said.

The 35-year-old Evans moved to Calgary in 2018 to be with her now-husband after previously living in Denver and being transplanted from Pennsylvania. Her experience living in more progressive cities left her deeply affected by Donald Trump’s victory in 2016.

“I was used to living in more progressive cities, Madison and then Denver, so when Trump won, I was devastated,” she said.

Evans admitted she thought when she moved to her new home in Calgary, she’d be able to escape some of the populist politics that have become embedded within American politics. However, she still got a taste of it.

Although she didn’t necessarily appreciate how Trump governed, she noted when she decided to move to Canada, it was for love, not politics. “We didn’t pick a place to relocate to in Canada based on anything other than where my fiance’s family lived.”

Trump’s victory could be crushing for some

Ahead of election day in the U.S., Evans said she’s remembering those feelings of what 2016 was like. She noted she’s happy to be a bit removed from the U.S. election and its material effects on her day-to-day interactions with people, but she said that a Trump victory would be crushing.

“I remember what it was like in 2016. I was travelling back and forth between California and Denver, and everyone in my office was in tears; they didn’t get any work done, and the energy was gone,” Evans said.

“I just worry about what’s going on and what’s going to happen to so many people.”

Reproductive rights and civil protections are among the issues dominating this election season, which weigh heavily on Evans. Her vote for Kamala Harris underscores concerns she and many others share about Trump’s potential impact.

“It feels like there will be plenty of Americans under a Trump presidency who don’t have anybody speaking for them, who won’t have a voice and who will lose protections,” Evans said. “It’s hard to watch from a distance and even think about what parts of the tension could bleed over into Canada and where I live now.”

Stepping out of the ‘circus’

Lindsay Fielding’s conversations with her friends, family and former neighbours in Arizona are all centred around the election. While it’s been more than a decade since Fielding called the U.S. home, during the last two election cycles, she’s been more engaged than ever before.

“The people in my circle have the same concerns that I do. I have friends in the States asking about how hard it is to move to Canada. People are questioning if they want to live in a country that is so divided,” she said.

While Fielding moved to Canada in 2012 during then-President Barack Obama’s presidency, she said it wasn’t a politically driven move but an economic one. “Things politically under Obama were pretty good, but there were challenges in Arizona with the school system and the housing crisis, so we decided it was better to move to Canada then.”

With her life now settled in Canada and the political climate in the U.S. getting more divisive over the years, Fielding said she has to remind herself to try to be removed from those conversations.

“I’ve had to take the mentality a little bit that it's not my circus, not my monkeys because since we’ve left, it is surreal just how much the political climate has changed,” Fielding said.

Division in the U.S. getting ‘nastier’

While 2020 is widely considered the most divisive and engaged U.S. presidential election ever, Fielding didn’t expect things to worsen but noted they have. From the attacks on reproductive rights to comments about Puerto Ricans and ostracizing half the country, Fielding said it’s hard to imagine the U.S. in 2024 as the same country she called home 12 years ago.

“The rhetoric was horrible last time, and you could see it grow since 2016, but what is unfolding this time is much nastier. You think you know the place, having grown up there. But I’ve had to take a step back, and I cannot believe some of the things being said,” Fielding noted.

While she voted Democrat by mail-in ballot a few weeks ago, Fielding said the political divide she’s witnessing in the U.S. is nothing like she’s ever seen before. The Arizona native admitted she was often politically disenfranchised because voting Democrat in the state was often not worthwhile. Still, in both the previous and current elections, every vote truly matters.

“I said, ‘I’m putting my stake in the sand and saying that I'm not OK with this, and I do want to choose to have a leader of the country with whom I still have citizenship and may go back someday,’” she said.

Getting away from the chaos

Michael Robinson spent his early years living in Canada before eventually moving to the U.S. for work. After spending 34 years living there, mostly in Kentucky, he moved back to Toronto in January 2024. Robinson said the decision to move back was largely his wife’s decision, and they’re happier to be in Toronto given the current political climate.

“My wife had enough of living in the States,” Robinson said. “Regarding the election, I can’t fathom why 70 million people voted for Trump. ... I’m thankful that I’m here. I’m thankful I’m not down there. We lived in a red state, and regardless of the results, especially if Kamala wins, it feels like there’s going to be violence.

“There’s nervousness about potentially contesting election results if Trump loses. If he doesn’t win, it feels like there will be political and real-life violence.”

Whether the outcome is a return to Trump or a Harris presidency, Carly Evans said politics has caused a divide in the U.S., which is so vast that she doesn’t see when that political fracture will be fixed. “It feels so extreme, and I don’t understand how the U.S. is ever going to return to some sense of normalcy,” she said.