Election Nights

I anticipate a late night on election night next week (which for me, on weeknights, counts as anything after 10 p.m.). I have an intense interest in the outcome so I’ll have to stay up to see the results. We may not get the final tally on Tuesday but I’ll have to stay awake until we get a clear signal that no other news will be forthcoming that night.

 

It’s not the first time I’ve stayed up on election night. The first few elections during my awareness were pretty tame. Aside from a very hazy memory of the 1980 election (I vaguely remember an article in Highlights or something showing the candidates), the first presidential election I remember was 1984. I can remember watching the conventions on TV on what must have been some rainy summer days or nights. I don’t actually remember election night except for a vague memory of my parents voting at the elementary school, and I think they brought me along. That would have been an early night had I stayed up. Election night 1988 is a blank for me.

 

I voted for the first time in 1992. That was a relatively exciting election with an incumbent losing but I have no memory of watching the returns. I don’t remember 1996 either, since that was a boring election that nobody remembers. I think I went out somewhere with my friends that night.

 

The first late-nighter for me was 2000. I was a reporter for a local newspaper so I was at the courthouse that night getting results for local races. Back at the office, we put together our stories but by around midnight, the presidential race was still too close to call. Right before we went to print, for some reason they asked me to make the call of who won the presidential race. I forget if I chose Bush or Gore but I just kind of flipped a coin so we could go to press with a heavy asterisk next to the result. I worked for a small paper so we didn’t have access to wire services or national results or anything like that; we were just watching TV like everybody else. After we finished, I went out for a beer with my coworkers and then home.

 

I was transfixed by the coverage when I got home, with the endless seesaw of the Florida results. I was particularly fascinated when Gore conceded and then retracted it. I’d never seen anything like that before. So I was up until 4 or 4:30 a.m. (Wednesday was my late day so I could afford to sleep in). I think I only went to bed when Peter Jennings or somebody told everyone there wouldn’t be any final results that night.

 

I was up late-ish in 2004 but probably went to bed by midnight. I don’t think we got any results until the next day. The 2008 election was called pretty early. I remember watching the Obamas walk out and address the crowd in Chicago. Oprah and Jesse Jackson wept. Election night 2012 didn’t go late either. When they called it for Obama, I turned on Fox News to see how they were reporting it, just in time to catch Karl Rove incredulous that Romney didn’t win Ohio, then going back to the room where they tabulated the results (which looked just like you’d expect: a bunch of people hunched over computers and crunching numbers).

 

Who remembers election night 2016? We thought it would be a party but it was looking grim as some of the returns came in. It was a roller coaster since Trump won a bunch of states in the South and Midwest (Indiana is always first), then a few big states were called for Clinton. Then the atmosphere shifted sometime between 9 and 10 p.m. The news anchors were breaking down the micro-results in several counties to compare how the candidates were doing with their predecessors. Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin just were not cooperating. I was watching the results move just slightly up and down as the percent of returns grew. It was surreal.

 

I think I finally went to bed at midnight because I just couldn’t watch him declare victory. I told Steve to wake me up if something unexpected happened. I didn’t sleep much.

 

So of course I’ll be watching Tuesday night for as long as it takes, at least until we find out we know all we’re going to know for the moment. I’m not as young as I was in 2000, and I have to work the next day, so I’ll be exhausted and either very happy or sad on Nov. 4.

 

After all this talk of long counts for mail-in ballots and bizarre Electoral College scenarios, wouldn’t it be hilarious if we had a landslide and it was over right after the West Coast polls closed?