As I'm sure all of you know by now, Donald Trump is the president-elect of the United States.
Many people watched the election results roll in, called by CNN, MSNBC, Fox, or some other news site. People followed it online, on TV, by themselves, with family or friends.
I did something... a little different.
Yeah, that's me. On TV. Yikes.
While the election results came in, I was a political consultant and panelist for AUTV. I had volunteered to do this during a Young Americans for Liberty meeting; Justin Simon, the YAL chapter president, asked if any of us were willing to appear on the panel, and three of us volunteered to tag-team it.
Well, the other two had things come up, and it was just me--a freshman--as the sole YAL representative. That's fine, honestly; I had zero problems going along, I just didn't have anyone to directly feed me updates like the Young Dems and College Republicans (who each sent two representatives, Rachael Wyant/Nathan Klainer and Kayla Gowdy/Clayton Hrinko respectively) did. Oh well.
The predictions we made, when it was me, Kayla, and Nathan on the panel, were completely wrong. Kayla had two possibilities: 330-208 or a 266 split with McMullin picking up Utah. Of course, we all knew the second one was unlikely. Klainer, even though he was the Democrat, didn't see Hillary winning by that much, but still put her over 300. I concurred. I didn't see any way Trump got the necessary states to pull it out.
Boy, were we wrong.
The first part of the night was standard. There were a few states in play, but nothing too surprising. We talked about what might happen if either candidate got it; we talked about the challenges they would face from both parties. There was no question that the Republicans would keep the House, but some Senate seats were really, genuinely in play, so we talked about those.
I don't know when it first dawned on me that Donald Trump would probably be the President-elect. It was probably Florida. Halfway through the night, Florida was still hugely in play, too close to call, and my predictions were all hinged on Florida: as Florida went, I figured, so would go the whole nation. Trump couldn't win without it.
I'd also known from the beginning that Michigan would be in play. I was watching those both intensely. The role of media, news and social, was a huge topic of discussion for us, but between the panels I could see my compatriots, especially Kayla and Rachael, begin to notice exactly what was going on. They didn't like it. Kayla may be a Republican, but she is squarely a Never-Trumper, and had anticipated a dramatic Trump loss.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," she said, when it looked like Trump would definitely take several swing states.
Rachael, who has worked locally with the Clinton campaign for months, was taken aback by just how thoroughly Trump took Ohio. When it became totally apparent that Trump was going to take Ohio (before the news sites called it, though), we were still on the air. Her face stiffened, visibly. Ingrid Schmidt, the political correspondent who was moderating the panel discussion, threw to Noah Cloonan in the Ashbrook Center. That's when Rachael spoke.
"No."
Clayton looked at her and slightly raised his eyebrows. "What?"
"He took Ohio. He's going to get it."
That moment, I think, was when I fully caught on to the reality of what was happening. After the next panel, Clayton spoke.
"This is becoming more and more real, and I don't like it."
Nathan and I agreed.
When we were in the last hour, Trump's chances of winning were nearing ninety percent. Rachael had called Nathan in to be the panelist for the last bit, as she watched results roll in. Trump takes this state; Trump takes that state. In fact, Trump managed to win a handful of states Romney had lost in 2012.
The show was over. I turned to Rachael. "You okay?"
"No," she said. She was holding it together well. From what I've heard about the Clinton election party, she held it together much better than the average Clinton supporter.
I gathered my things. I'd just spent five hours watching a historic election and commentating alongside people I respect.
The next four years will be very interesting, but I'm at least glad that's what I was doing Election Night 2016.
