EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) -- After a historic election, former President Donald Trump is now President-elect Trump. He will serve as the 47th president after defeating his Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris.  With projections made in most states, Trump has secured enough Electoral College votes to secure his second term for the presidency. Texas, a historically red state, gave him 40 of those votes. While Texas leaning right in this election cycle was no surprise, El Paso County’s unofficial results were.  Data from the El Paso County Elections Department shows that Harris received 57 percent of the votes, whereas Trump received 42 percent. This 15 percent margin is less than half of what was seen in the 2020 election against Joe Biden, and 28 percent less than the margin in 2016.   KTSM spoke with an associate political science professor from UTEP who had his own speculations about the trend in republican support.  “I think there certainly is a gender dynamic to what's going on. The appeal to Hispanic voters from the Republican Party hasn't been on both sides. It's been very targeted towards young males in that environment. That could be part of what we're seeing. We also might simply be seeing the fact that after really ten years of running Trump for president, it is effective in terms of getting out voter turnout,” Dr. Todd Curry said.  “We certainly are seeing not just higher Republican vote share in our districts. We're also just seeing more Republicans running. If you think back 12 years ago, there were many more uncontested races which a Democrat won. We don't have nearly as many uncontested races. Now, I would say that the Republican Party locally is stronger than it was ten years ago,” Curry said.  Students at UTEP shared mixed emotions on the election results as well.   “I think I feel very overwhelmed, a little disappointed, of course. I would say mostly just overwhelmed,” student Priscilla Quintanilla said.  Quintanilla said she worries about the economy, primarily with taxes, impacting the community considering El Paso has a sizeable population of low-income to middle-class households.  Other students, like Dante Gonzalez, also have the economy top of their minds.  “Some major changes I’m seeing is with the gas prices, that’s what I’m hoping for. At the end of the day, I just want those to go down. If those go down, I'll be happy,” Gonzalez said.  Other students mentioned immigration and border security as the main sectors for impact.  All the students KTSM spoke with fell into the Gen-Z age group (18-29), some of them saying this was their first time voting in a presidential election.  “It was definitely an experience, to say the least. It was my first time voting. The importance of the election was well-known across the entire nation. So, just waiting to see what comes next. The result is the result and what we can do is build off that and build a good course for the next four years,” Sebastian Perez-Navarro said.  Perez-Navarro said he was curious about how the nation will move forward and hopes a message of unity will be pushed forward, offering words of encouragement in an otherwise divisive time.  “The most powerful thing that we can do is just continue to advertise and push forward our own values, what we want to see as a nation. Because at the end of the day, these leaders are supposed to represent us. So, no matter what happens, we need to make sure that our voices are always going out there,” Perez-Navarro said.