In the end, Kamala Harris never took the stage at her election night watch party on the Howard University campus in Washington DC. As Americans appeared poised to return Donald Trump to power, it was her campaign co-chair, Cedric Richmond, who appeared 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 chair, 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, highest” glass ceiling. Eight years later, they are still waiting.
Richmond told a dispersing crowd that they would not be hearing from the vice-president on election night after all. But he pledged she would return to the 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 spoken.”
The evening had begun with promise. Doreen Hogans, 50, arrived at Harris’s election night watch party at Howard University on Tuesday evening filled with cautious optimism. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled a string of pearls that had belonged to her late mother. She imagined how her mother might have felt knowing 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, her eyes glistening, letting herself imagine Harris, and her signature pearls, ascend to the presidency. She took a deep breath, pocketed the necklace and merged into the crowd of Democrats assembled on the Yard.
Harris’s supporters were expectant. The music pulsed. “If you’re ready to make Black history, talk to me,” the DJ called out. On the lawn, young people wearing Harris-Walz camouflage snapback caps, women in pantsuits and children waving small American flags cheered and clapped.
Members of Harris’s AKA sorority, wearing pink and green, danced in front of the stage set for Harris to speak.
Michele Fuller, who overlapped with Harris as a student at Howard in the 1980s, rushed into the event with a friend. “It feels unbelievable,” she said.
“She’s just done so great,” said Fuller, who had helped canvas for the vice-president in all-important Pennsylvania. “She’s more than qualified. I’m just so excited.”
In the 108 days since Harris’s sudden ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket, she has carried the fears of tens of millions of Americans deeply afraid of a second Trump presidency. The stakes were exceedingly high, she acknowledged, agreeing at one point 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 this way,” Harris said, in her closing argument from grassy Ellipse near the White House, a backdrop meant to underline both the threat of a Trump second term and the potential of a future Harris administration.
Her audaciously joyful campaign unleashed a wave of pent-up excitement among Democratic-leaning voters, especially women. She had raised a billion dollars. She has centered abortion rights, framing it as a matter of bodily autonomy. She attracted high-energy crowds and endorsements from the planet’s biggest stars. And yet, for its entirety, the race remained excruciatingly, nail-bitingly close.
As Trump pulled to an expected early lead on Tuesday evening, jitters set in. But this was a crowd predisposed to worry.
In the shadow of Clinton’s 2016 loss – an upset that stunned the scores of women who had assembled at her glass-ceilinged election night party in New York and covered the grave of Susan B Anthony in “I Voted” stickers – few Democrats allowed themselves to feel anything more than “nauseously optimistic” about Harris’s prospects.
Rhonda Greene, 55, of Virginia, recalled waking up on the Wednesday morning after the 2016 election confident the US had elected a female president. “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.”
After all, so much has changed since then. Trump’s presidency sparked an extraordinary backlash and women marched en masse across the country. Democratic-leaning women ran for office 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 power Democrats fend off a red wave in 2022, and saw conservative states act to protect access. Harris’s candidacy, while 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 the Frederick Douglas Memorial Hall was illuminated and the stage set for the vice-president to speak.
But perhaps a lesson from 2016: there were no flashy displays of confidence at Harris’s election night party. No glass ceiling – it was outdoors at her alma mater, the place where she won her first election, freshman class representative of the Liberal Arts Student Council. Many Howard students and alumni were in attendance to support Harris, who would be the first president to have graduated from an HBCU – historically Black colleges and universities.
As the evening wore on, and Trump pulled further ahead in the electoral college count, her apprehensive supporters found solace in a handful of bright spots. Angela Alsobrooks was elected to be the first Black female senator to represent Maryland. Cheers rang out when Harris won her home state of California, hardly a surprise, but a boost that brought her tally to 145 against Trump’s 211.
Attenders refreshed their phones, staring at a probability needle that increasingly pointed irrevocably toward Trump victory. The loss of North Carolina – the first of the seven battleground states to be called for Trump – brought almost no audible reaction from the crowd. There was no raucous booing, just nervous sighs and scattered groans.
As the mood darkened at the event, the sound on the TVs were eventually switched off and music began to play, 2Pac’s California Love came on. The vibes were no longer good. Attenders began to filter out. Some debated whether to stay in hopes of hearing from the vice-president herself. But when it became clear she would not speak, there was a rush toward the exit.
The blue wall states had not been called yet and that was always what the Harris campaign saw as its clearest path to victory. With those contests outstanding, Janay Smith, an alumna of Howard who flew in from Atlanta with the hope of witnessing history on the campus of her alma mater, said she had not yet given up hope.
But, she conceded, “I am a bit let down by my nation that is even this close.”
Both Harris and Trump had framed the election as an existential battle for the country’s future and its very democracy. And given the choice between electing the first female president or returning to power the twice-impeached former president, whose attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat led to an insurrection at the US Capitol and who would become the first convicted felon commander-in-chief, Americans chose him, again.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
