Shortly after midnight, a few hundred feet from the anticipated stage where Kamala Harris was to address her election night gathering at Howard University in Washington, DC, a small group of students gathered closely together.
They expressed their initial excitement, eager to commemorate the rise of a Howard graduate to the nation’s highest office.
Although the Democratic presidential nominee had opted to return to her alma mater for this significant occasion, she ultimately decided to forgo her scheduled appearance.
“I felt so excited, like this is history in the making,” said Cori Ross, 20. “No other campus has the future president, or at least the current vice-president on their grounds.”
The initial two calls from the nation’s seven swing states—Georgia and North Carolina, both anticipated to favor Donald Trump—clearly indicated a shift in the overall atmosphere.
“We’re freaking out,” said Ross’s fellow student Dru Strand. “It’s just such a close race, so the minute that someone loses one state or gains in one state… it’s just super stressful.”
The gathering at Howard’s Yard, the central grassy area of the university, began to disperse, with seemingly hundreds of individuals making their way off campus into the cool evening air.
Those who remained appeared to retain the excitement from earlier in the evening, dancing and singing along to the music of Usher, Kendrick Lamar, and Beyoncé, which resonated from the speakers positioned throughout the yard.
Just hours prior on Tuesday, the atmosphere across Howard’s campus had been vibrant, echoing the joy and enthusiasm that marked the initial days of Harris’s presidential campaign.
Thousands gathered beneath the night sky, eager to celebrate the nation’s first female president.
Many attendees were adorned in Howard-branded apparel or the colors of Harris’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA), the first black sorority in the country, with its signature bright pink hue standing out amidst the crowd.
“It means a lot that she decided to come home,” said Patrice Williams, a member of AKA who attended another one of the country’s HBCUs.
After several months of polling indicating that the candidates were nearly evenly matched, early voting statistics provided the Harris campaign with a glimmer of hope: women, who polls indicate support Harris significantly, were participating in unprecedented numbers.
When initial results revealed that Harris held slight advantages in key states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, the assembled audience erupted in enthusiasm, sensing that the evening might be turning in her favor.
However, this exhilaration quickly transformed into concern as Harris’s route to the presidency appeared more unlikely, hindered by Trump’s growing successes in various states.
“It’s extremely nerve-wracking,” Ross said. “I feel that people don’t comprehend what truly is on the line. So much could switch by the end of the week, we could be living in a completely different nation.”
