Kamala Harris’s dream of becoming the first woman to be elected US president quicklyturned into a nightmare for the crowd that gathered at Howard University late Tuesday evening.
Election Night was understandably depressing for Democrats. The party lost its majority in the Senate and saw Donald Trump return to the White House in January with a powerful conservative majority on the Supreme Court — the near worst-case scenario many in the party were warning about for months.
The tears definitely flowed on the Yard outside Frederick Douglass Hall as the night grew long and Harris campaign adviser Cedric Richmond told the crowd that the vice president wouldn’t speak to them. Richmond vowed that the campaign would fight “overnight,” but Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania and other states made the realities clear.
The night began with serious optimism among Harris supporters; those who spoke to The Independent before the major battlegrounds began reporting returns. They spoke about her win like it was a near-certainty, and triumphantly asserted that the right’s cultural and political message had been successfully battled back. One transgender activist spoke about how the Trump campaign’s “entire closing argument of attacking transgender people” had been proven to “not actually penetrate for voters.”
Then reality set in, as it became clear that Virginia was unexpectedly close, the Iowa Selzer poll anomaly had not been born out, and the campaign was going to be in the fight of its life as Harris underperformed Joe Biden’s 2020 numbers across the nation.
But some of the young Harris supporters who poured off the venue at her alma mater were still in good spirits as the night ended; laughing, cracking jokes, and overall putting on brave faces for the cameras.
Maybe it was a sign of the times, of America’s experience with a decade of Trumpmania. But even Richmond himself quipped to The Independent as he walked out with the crowd that the campaign had “left it all on the field” and had reasons to feel confident — though that was likely more than a little bit of a politician’s bluster.
Throughout the evening, Howard students spoke about how important the moment was for the school, the community, and Black sororities and fraternities as well. Even in likely defeat, Harris had become the standard-bearer for a new generation of leadership on the American left, despite being counted out early on (and in their minds, maybe prematurely) in her 2020 bid for the White House.
“It means a lot [for her to have her party at Howard],” current Howard student Baiyee-Ndang Agbor-Baiyee told The Independent, while expressing optimism that Harris would pull things through even given some “rocky” election returns. “Howard is a place that breeds excellence…and when you can show the next generation that excellence is in your face, it’s not something that’s distant…it’s achievable. It means a lot.”
As the night dragged on, the “Blue Wall” in the Rust Belt appeared to be showing cracks, while Pennsylvania crept further and further out of reach. The southwest was in an equally dismal state for the Democrats.
The mood quickly soured, and people began pouring out. The weather changed, too; a warm evening suddenly became breezy and chilly, and departures accelerated. By the time Richmond spoke after midnight, around half of the watch party’s crowd had already headed for the exits in a scene reminiscent of a Trump rally. The campaign’s announcement cleared the rest out.
Devante Hill, a Harris campaign volunteer and a Howard alum, spoke to The Independent as the final crowd let out.
“I think the majority of us, when the night started, we kind of knew that we wouldn’t be leaving this place tonight knowing who the winner actually was,” Hill said. “And so I think we’re not kind of like, ‘all hope is lost.’”
“We just have to just wait until all the votes are counted, and then we’ll concede if that’s what it’s calling for, and if not, we’ll claim the victory.”
But, hours after the crowd cleared out, enough had been counted to declare Trump the winner.
He also added of the vice president being a product of Howard: “It is no surprise, Howard University has historically bred some of the world changers that we know today…so, not surprised, but [we’re] definitely very excited.”
Looking and listening to the crowd that left Harris’s watch party, it’s clear why the vice president chose this place to end her campaign. Where the Democrats go from here is unclear — it will be in the wilderness, under a Trump presidency for at least two years, until they figure out what comes next.
