Before the primaries, I was a heavy Marco Rubio/Ted Cruz supporter that was completely against the idea of a Trump presidency, let alone the idea of Trump being nominated by the Republicans. But, after watching Trump more and more, he grew on me.

At the Republican National Convention, I saw now president-elect Trump give a stellar acceptance speech. That’s when I realized who I was going to vote for.

On the first day of early voting, I went out to the Lantana library and voted for the first time. For my vote, I chose Donald J. Trump and Mike Pence. I voted a straight Republican ticket and I have no shame about it.

Some would say “How can you vote for someone like him?”

Well, the decision wasn’t too hard. I saw all these negative things as just noise that was trying to distract me and many other Americans from the real issues. I took all his comments and quotes that he said in the past with a grain of salt. Keep in mind, Donald Trump used to be a reality TV star. Personally, I thought he said all those outlandish things just to create headlines for his name and for his show, which I did not take seriously.

Keep in mind, I didn’t take Trump literally. I know he can’t build a wall, I know he can’t ban all Muslims, and I know he won’t deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants.

I know he made some comments that many questioned, but I took him seriously as a candidate.

As a voter, the way I was going to vote was based on change and jobs. After seeing a family member lose his job to Bill Clinton’s NAFTA trade deal, I had quite the animosity for the Clinton’s already.

What I saw in Donald Trump was change, and I knew he could bring change to the corrupt establishment in both parties that run DC. The first outsider president in office sounded very nice to me, and in my opinion, Hillary Clinton seemed to be the embodiment of establishment politics in Washington.

Although she ran one on one of the most progressive platforms that appealed to many Americans, I simply could not pass up this opportunity to vote for the first outsider president.

Trump is different than most Republican candidates to run for public office. Trump is in his own league, being socially liberal, but with a fiscally conservative look when it comes to the economy.

When it comes to marijuana reform, Donald Trump takes a different stance than his party’s platform. In February, he came out to say that he supports medical marijuana, and would like to leave it up to the states.

For issues like same-sex marriage, recently, the president-elect has come out to support it. Trump states that same-sex marriage is “settled law” and that he is fine with it.

Donald Trump’s reform and take over of the Republican party has been historic. He has shifted the platform and changed the map for the Republicans, making the party more acceptable and open to more Americans, which has been a prime issue for the GOP in recent years.

Donald  Trump did what no Republican has been able to do since Reagan. He tapped into the disenfranchised, white voters in the rust belt that saw the change that Trump wanted to bring. For so long, the Republican party counted out union and industrial areas such as the north mid-west. But, they took a chance and elected the Billionaire businessman to be the 45th president of the United States.

It’s now Donald Trump’s turn and I think it is time that we as Americans give him a chance to see what he can do.

It is now Trump’s nation and he is my president.