Hope and excitement turn to trepidation and fear at Kamala Harris’ watch party | US election 2024

IIn the end, Kamala Harris never took the stage at her election night party on the Howard University campus in Washington DC. When Americans seemed poised to return Donald Trump to power, it was her campaign chairman, Cedric Richmond, who showed up instead.

He tried to strike a note of optimism – there were still votes to be counted. But the scene had echoes of Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, when her campaign chairman, not the candidate, came out to address her election-night supporters — women and girls awaiting a result that many hoped would finally shatter the “hardest, tallest” glass ceiling. . Eight years later, they are still waiting.

Richmond told a scattered crowd that they didn’t want to hear from the vice president on election night after all. But he promised she would return to campus to address supporters — and the nation — on Wednesday.

“We still have votes to count,” he said. “We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has been spoken.”

The evening had started promisingly. Doreen Hogans, 50, arrived at Harris’ election night party at Howard University on Tuesday night brimming with cautious optimism. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a string of pearls that had belonged to her late mother. She pondered how her mother might feel that the nation’s first female and first black female vice president was on the cusp of history.

“She would have been so proud,” Hogans said, eyes twinkling, imagining Harris and her signature pearls ascending to the presidency. She took a deep breath, pocketed the necklace, and melted into the crowd of Democrats gathered at the Yard.

Harris’ supporters were hopeful. The music pulsated. Members of Harris’ AKA sorority, wearing pink and green, danced together. Michele Fuller, who attended Howard at the same time as Harris, rushed into the event with a friend. “It feels incredible,” said she, who helped canvas for Harris in Pennsylvania.

“She’s just done so well,” she said. “And she’s more than qualified. I’m just so excited.”

All around her, students and supporters filled the lawn around the stage for Harris to speak. Supporters danced as the music pulsated. “If you’re ready to make black history, talk to me,” shouted the DJ.

In the past 108 days since Harris’ sudden rise to the top of the Democratic ticket, she has carried the fears of tens of millions of Americans who are deeply afraid of another Trump presidency. The stakes were high, she acknowledged, and at one point she agreed that her opponent met the definition of a fascist, but she promised a future unbound by the fear and anxiety of the Trump era. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Harris said in his closing argument last week.

Her boldly joyful campaign unleashed a wave of pent-up enthusiasm among Democratic-leaning voters, especially women. She had raised a billion dollars. She has focused on abortion rights and framed it as a matter of bodily autonomy. She attracted energetic crowds and endorsements from the planet’s biggest stars. And yet the race remained extremely, nail-bitingly close.

As Donald Trump began to build an expected early lead on Tuesday night, the unrest set in. But this was a crowd predisposed to anxiety.

In the shadow of Clinton’s 2016 loss — a riot that stunned dozens of women who turned out for her glass-ceilinged election night party in New York and covered Susan B Anthony’s grave in “I Voted” stickers — few Democrats allowed themselves himself feeling anything more than “nauseously optimistic” about Harris’ prospects.

Rhonda Greene, 55, of Virginia, said she woke up Wednesday morning after the 2016 election believing the United States had elected Hillary Clinton. “Then I looked at the TV and I was in a state of shock – for at least a week,” she said. “I can’t even imagine. I won’t even allow my mind to go there.”

So much has changed since then. Trump’s presidency sparked an extraordinary backlash, and women marched en masse across the country. Democratically oriented women ran in record numbers – and many of them won. And then the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, igniting women of all ideological persuasions. Fury over the loss of federal abortion rights again helped incumbent Democrats stave off a red wave in 2022, and saw conservative states act to protect access. Harris’s candidacy, though unexpected, seemed like the natural progression.

“To see a woman become president, I’m like, I can do anything after that,” said Chelsea Chambers, a sophomore at Howard, arriving at the Yard, where Frederick Douglas Memorial Hall was lit and the stage set for the caretaker. president to speak.

But perhaps a lesson from 2016: There were no flashy displays of confidence at Harris’ election night party. No glass ceiling—it was outdoors at her alma mater, the place where she won her first election, freshman class representative for the Liberal Arts Student Council. Many Howard students and alumni were on hand to support Harris, who would be the first president to graduate from an HBCU – Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

As the evening progressed, the crowd celebrated the handful of bright spots. Angela Alsobrooks was elected to be the first black female senator to represent Maryland. The jubilation as Harris won her home state of California was hardly a surprise, but it boosted her vote tally, 145 to Trump’s 211.

But the night quickly turned from celebration to fear. Attendees began refreshing their phones, staring at a probability needle that increasingly pointed toward a Trump victory.

The loss of North Carolina — the first of the seven battleground states called for Trump — stung, but there was hardly any reaction from the crowd — just nervous sighs and scattered groans.

As the mood darkened and the campaign finally muted the TVs and the music began to play, 2Pac’s California Love came on. But the mood was off. Many attendees began to leave, while others debated whether to stay and hear from the vice president himself.

In the rush for the exit, Janay Smith, 55 and a Howard alumna who flew in from Atlanta, said she hadn’t given up hope yet. The blue wall states had not yet been called, and that was always what the Harris campaign saw as its clearest path to victory.

But Harris had framed the election as an existential choice for the country’s future. And in the choice between electing the first female president and returning to power the former president, whose attempt to cling to power in 2020 led to a riot at the US Capitol and who would be the first convicted crime boss, America chose him, again.

“I’m a little bit let down by my nation even being so close,” Smith said.

Read more about the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage