The vibe shifted someday round 10:30 p.m. Jap.
For a number of hours beforehand, the scene on the Howard College Yard had been jubilant: all glitter and sequins and billowing American flags. The earrings have been massive, and the risers have been full. Males in fraternity jackets and girls in pink tweed fits grooved to a bass-forward playlist of hip-hop and basic rock. The Howard gospel choir, in brilliant-blue robes, carried out a beautiful rendition of “Oh Joyful Day,” and other people sang alongside in a method that made you are feeling as if the college’s alumna of the hour, Kamala Harris, had already received.
However Harris had not received—a incontrovertible fact that, by 10:30, had develop into very noticeable. Because the night drew on, the clusters of giddy sorority sisters and VIP alumni stopped dancing, their focus educated on the projector screens, which have been delivering a gradual movement of at greatest mediocre and generally dire information for Democrats. No encouragement had but come from these all-important blue-wall states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Someplace between Georgia turning pink and Senator Ted Cruz demolishing Colin Allred in Texas, attendees began trickling out the again.
It was beginning to really feel fairly apparent, even then, that Donald Trump could be declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election. And shortly after 5:30 a.m. Jap this morning, he was, when the Related Press referred to as Wisconsin for him, giving him an Electoral Faculty majority even with numerous states but to declare. An across-the-board rightward shift, from Michigan to Manhattan, had step by step crushed the hopes of Democrats in an election that, for weeks, polling had indicated was just about tied. However a Trump victory was a actuality that almost everybody at Harris’s watch celebration appeared to have ready for under theoretically.
Earlier than final evening, Democrats felt buoyant on a closing shot of hopium. Whereas Harris stayed on message, Trump had what appeared a disastrous last week: His closing argument was incoherent; his rally at Madison Sq. Backyard was a parade of racism; he stumbled getting right into a rubbish truck and appeared significantly orange in images. Democratic insiders crowed that early-vote totals have been favoring Harris, and that undecided voters in swing states have been coming round. Then there was Ann Selzer’s well-respected ballot in Iowa, which prompt that the state would possibly go blue for the primary time since Barack Obama’s presidency.
On a breezy and unseasonably heat night in Washington, D.C., hundreds of individuals had gathered on the grassy campus at Harris’s alma mater to look at, they hoped, historical past being made. Nobody talked about Trump after I requested them how they have been feeling—solely how excited they have been to have voted for somebody like Harris. Kerry-Ann Hamilton and Meka Simmons, each members of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, had come collectively to witness the nation elect the primary Black girl president. “She is so nicely certified—” Hamilton began to say. “Overqualified!” Simmons interjected.
Leah Johnson, who works at Howard and grew up in Washington, advised me that she would in all probability go away the occasion early to look at returns together with her mom and 12-year-old daughter at dwelling. “It’s an intergenerational celebratory affair,” she mentioned. “I get to say, ‘Look, Mother, we have already got Barack Obama; look what we’re doing now!’”
Everybody I spoke with used comparable phrases and phrases: plenty of firsts and historics and references to the glass ceiling, which proved so stubbornly uncrackable in 2016. Attendees cheered in unison on the information that Harris had taken Colorado, and booed at Trump successful Mississippi. A gaggle of girls in tight clothes danced to “1, 2 Step,” by Ciara and Missy Elliott. Howard’s president led alumni within the crowd in a call-and-response that made the entire night really feel slightly like a soccer sport—simply enjoyable, low stakes.
A number of folks I talked with refused to entertain the concept that Harris wouldn’t win. “I received’t even let myself take into consideration that,” a lady named Sharonda, who declined to share her final identify, advised me. She sat together with her sorority sisters of their matching pink-and-green sweatshirts. Quickly, although, the group started to develop stressed. “It was good once they turned off the TV and performed Kendrick,” mentioned one attendee who labored on the White Home and didn’t wish to share her identify. “Simply being a part of that is restoring my soul, even when the result isn’t what I would like it to be,” Christine Slaughter, a political-science professor at Boston College, advised me. She was cautious. She remembered, viscerally, she mentioned, the second when Trump received in 2016, and the reminiscence was simple to conjure once more now. “I do know that feeling,” she mentioned. She was consoling herself: She’d been crushed earlier than. She may deal with it once more.
Harris herself was anticipated to talk at about 11 p.m., however by midnight, she nonetheless hadn’t appeared. Folks bit their cheeks and scrolled on their telephones. There was a burst of gleeful whoops when Angela Alsobrooks beat Larry Hogan in Maryland’s U.S. Senate election. However quickly the trickle of exiting attendees turned a gradual movement. Doubtlessly decisive outcomes from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin weren’t due quickly, however Michigan didn’t look good. North Carolina was about to be referred to as for Trump.
I texted a few of my typical Democratic sources and acquired principally radio silence in response. “How do you are feeling?” I requested one, who had been on the celebration earlier. “Left,” she answered. Mike Murphy, a Republican anti-Trump marketing consultant, texted me again at about 12:30 a.m: “Shoot me.”
Donors and VIPs have been streaming out the facet entrance. The comic Billy Eichner walked by, wanting unhappy, because the Sugarhill Gang’s “Apache (Leap on It)” performed over the loudspeakers. A person pulled me apart: “There will probably be no speech, I take it?” he mentioned. It was extra of a remark than a query.
“I’m depressed, disenchanted,” mentioned Mark Lengthy, a software program salesman from D.C., who wore a T-shirt with an image of Harris as a toddler. He was particularly upset concerning the shift towards Trump amongst Black males. “I’m unhappy. Not only for tonight, however for what this represents.” Elicia Spearman appeared offended as she marched out of the venue. “If it’s Trump, folks will reap what they sow,” she mentioned. “It’s karma.”
Simply earlier than 1 a.m., the Harris marketing campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond got here onstage to announce that the candidate wouldn’t be talking that evening. The previous Louisiana consultant supplied muted encouragement to the group—an unofficial send-off. “Thanks for being right here. Thanks for believing within the promise of America,” he mentioned, earlier than including, “Go, Kamala Harris!” The remaining members of the group cheered weakly. Among the stadium lights went off.
