They couldn't vote, but Canadians ended up with their man in the White House anyway.
Barack Obama won another four years, defeating a surprisingly tenacious Mitt Romney, who made a race of it right to the end, at least in the popular vote.
For Canadians, this was the preferred outcome. Obama is the president they know and the leader whose personal story —and political views — they admire.
Polls routinely suggest Obama is hugely popular in this country. It's a crush that goes back to his first visit to Ottawa in February 2009 when thousands of well-wishers flocked to Parliament Hill just for a glimpse and a presidential wave.
But the question now is did Canadians get the president they need? Especially when the candidate who spoke most glowingly about Canada for its energy resources and fiscal probity was the other guy.
Some business leaders don't believe another four years of Obama is necessarily in the best interest of this country.
They point to his inaction in promoting a second bridge at the clogged Windsor, Ont.-Detroit border crossing.
And they argue that Romney would have been better for Canada, because Republicans have a stronger record of supporting free trade, and Alberta's oilsands.
Queen's University political scientist Kim Richard Nossal also points out that Romney actually understands Canada better than most Republicans, growing up as he did in border-state Michigan and summering in Ontario.
With Tuesday's Obama victory, he forecasts four more years of "tepid" dealings.
"We want Barack Obama in the White House but it's not clear it's the best result for us,'' Nossal says. "The last couple of years in Canadian-American relations have been marked by a lack of enthusiasm.''
Perhaps no issue is more pressing for Canada (not to mention the U.S.), than the so-called fiscal cliff facing the president on Jan 1
That's the deadline when, by law, a series of mandatory tax hikes and spending cuts will take effect without some agreement between the White House and Congress.
An estimate by the Congressional Budget Office suggests the combined cuts and tax hikes will increase U.S. unemployment by a full percentage point, or two million jobs, and the economy would shrink by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says the fallout would spread quickly.
"If that happens … the United States will go in to a recession almost immediately of 4-5%,'' he told CBC's Power and Politics.
"We would follow the United States into recession in all likelihood. And it wouldn't take very long.''
Another recession would mean less demand for Canadian goods south of the border. It would mean job losses in most sectors and lower revenues.
All of which would derail the Conservatives' efforts to eliminate the deficit by 2015-16.
Flaherty says negotiating a deal before Jan. 1, or at least a temporary extension, is critical to getting the mighty U.S. economy moving again.
And that might have been easier under Romney than Obama, who has shown little ability in the past three years to work with the Republican-dominated House on any issue.
