IUltimately, Kamala Harris never took the stage at her election night watch party on the Howard University campus in Washington DC. When Americans seemed ready to return Donald Trump to power, it was her campaign co-chair, Cedric Richmond, who showed up instead.

He tried to convey a tone of optimism – there were still votes to be counted. But the scene echoed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, when her campaign chairman, not the candidate, came out to address her election night supporters — women and girls waiting for an outcome that many hoped would ultimately be the ‘hardest, highest’ glass ceiling would break. . Eight years later, they’re still waiting.

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

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

The evening had started promisingly. Doreen Hogans, 50, arrived at Harris’ election night watch party at Howard University on Tuesday evening full of cautious optimism. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pearl necklace that had belonged to her late mother. She considered 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, her eyes sparkling, as she imagined Harris and her signature pearls ascending to the presidency. She took a deep breath, put the necklace in her pocket, and blended in with the crowd of Democrats gathered at the Yard.

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

“She just did such a great job,” she said. “And she’s more than qualified. I’m just so excited.”

Around her, students and supporters filled the lawn around the stage so Harris could speak. Supporters danced as the music pulsed. “If you’re ready to make Black history, talk to me,” the DJ shouted.

Over the past 108 days since Harris’ sudden ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket, she has carried with her the fears of tens of millions of Americans who deeply fear a second Trump presidency. The stakes were high, she acknowledged, at one point agreeing that her opponent met the definition of a fascist, but she promised a future not tied to the fears and anxieties of the Trump era. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” Harris said in her closing argument last week.

Her daringly joyful campaign unleashed a wave of pent-up excitement among Democratic-leaning voters, especially women. She had raised a billion dollars. She has focused on abortion rights and viewed it as a matter of bodily autonomy. She drew an energetic crowd and had support from the world’s biggest stars. And yet the race remained extraordinarily, nail-bitingly close.

When Donald Trump started to take an expected early lead on Tuesday evening, the jitters started. But this was a crowd prone to fear.

In the shadow of Clinton’s 2016 loss — a shock that stunned the dozens of women who gathered at her glass-ceilinged election party in New York and covered Susan B. Anthony’s grave with “I Voted” stickers — few stood Democrats allow themselves to I feel anything but “nauseatedly optimistic” about Harris’ prospects.

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

After all, so much has changed since then. Trump’s presidency caused an extraordinary reaction 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, setting women of all ideological persuasions on fire. Anger over the loss of federal abortion rights helped power Democrats fend off another red wave in 2022, prompting conservative states to take action to protect access. Harris’ candidacy, while unexpected, seemed like a natural progression.

“To see a woman become president makes me think, ‘After that, I can do anything,’” said Chelsea Chambers, a sophomore at Howard, as she arrived at the Yard, where the Frederick Douglas Memorial Hall was illuminated and provided the backdrop for the vice president. to speak to the chairman.

But perhaps a lesson from 2016: There were no flashy displays of confidence at Harris’ election night party. No glass ceiling – it was outside at her alma mater, the place where she won her first election as a freshman representative of the Liberal Arts Student Council. Many Howard students and alumni were on hand to support Harris, who would be the first president to have graduated from an HBCU — historically black colleges and universities.

As the evening progressed, the audience celebrated the handful of bright spots. Angela Alsobrooks was elected the first Black female senator to represent Maryland. There were cheers when Harris won her home state of California, no surprise, but it increased her electoral votes from 145 to Trump’s 211.

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

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

As the mood darkened and the campaign finally muted the TVs and started playing the music, 2Pac’s California Love was called in. But the atmosphere was gone. Many attendees began to leave, while others debated whether to stay and listen to 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. The blue wall states had not yet been declared and that was always what the Harris campaign saw as the 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 efforts to cling to power in 2020 led to an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and who would be the first convicted felon commander in chief , American picked him, again.

“I’m kind of let down by my country even being so close,” Smith said.

Read more about the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage