US election: Harris fans cling to hope as election night fizzles

The Yard is a place where history is made. It’s where great leaders address students at Washington, D.C.’s Howard University.
Nelson Mandela, Colin Powell, Oprah Winfrey and Martin Luther King Jr have stood on that green expanse.
And on Tuesday night, those standing in Howard’s symbolic heart hope to make history again.
Thousands of people – predominantly young, black people – have come to watch their country elect its first woman president; its first Black, South Asian, woman president.
Kamala Harris’ supporters don’t think they’ll get a result on the night. They say they’ve come along to celebrate what Harris and her running mate stand for. They say they’ve already won – regardless of the result.
But beneath the sensible words, there is a glimmer of hope. They hope that the results will come in fast and news networks will feel confident calling the crucial battleground states for Harris. Hope that, come morning,she will be the 47th president of the United States of America.
The January 6 insurrection has cast a long shadow over the city. Business owners have boarded up their shopfronts just in case.
But for now, thousands step out of that shadow to dance, cheer and be together.
The US moved out of daylight saving time as the country entered the final week of the presidential campaign. It’d be overly superstitious to draw a metaphor of darker days ahead.
As the sun sets on the capital, Howard University campus fills with the largest crowd it’s ever seen.
Harris picked her alma mater as the location for her official election night watch party for all it means to her. She often describes her four years at Howard as the most formative of her life.
I file off the bus and walk through the empty streets, past the police cars keeping them empty, and past the thinning lines at the entrance to Howard University.
Most of Harris’ and Tim Walz’s supporters are already inside. Fellow stragglers are grooving to the music beside me and shooting selfie videos as they make their way into the outdoor area, framed by monstrous star-spangled banners.
The crowd has come dressed for the occasion.
A not insignificant number of people are wearing crowns and sashes. Some have chosen a camo Harris-Walz cap instead.
A group of women sitting on the bleachers are wearing bright green t-shirts – the Howard colours. Behind them is a woman with BLACK JOY printed across her chest.
A young woman of colour walks past. ‘This is what a president looks like,’ her top reads. Then another: ‘I’m with her’. One man has ‘Chefs for Kamala’ on his top. It’s very niche. Perhaps it should be ‘Chef for Kamala’.
Journalists strain at the fence that separates the press pack  – embarrassingly, I’m one of them. The reporters gesture at supporters who pass by, hoping their two-minute vox pop in the chaotic festival-style event will be the one that produces something insightful; something different to the dozens of others their colleagues have done during the past couple of hours.
Mark Long tells the Aussie TV reporter he’s talking to that it’s been exactly 152 years since the first black woman voted in America. She was arrested for her troubles.
Long is also sporting team colours. His shirt has a picture of a young black girl on it. The little girl is Harris.
The DJ cranks up the volume and big groups of people start dancing. It looks like they’ve prepared a routine for the night. But maybe it’s one of those TikTok dances I’ve heard about.
Howard University alumnus Beverly Fields tells Newsroom she’s been drawn to the event by “the promise of democracy, freedom, equality and justice”.
Fields says Harris and Walz have provided people with hope and a message of unity at a time when the country is divided.
The public sector executive, who studied law and engineering at Howard, says she feels “honoured to witness this time”. Harris is an African-American woman who’s broken the glass ceiling, she says.
Harris embodies the Bison spirit of the university: “lifting as we climb”, and she does that with grace, Fields says.
The big screens are tuned to the liberal network news station CNN, and as early results start rolling in, people stop to look.
Harris is ahead in North Carolina: cheers from the crowd. Behind in Georgia: silence. Ahead in Virginia and Ohio: big cheers.
It’s too early to call these states, with just a portion of the votes counted. But there is reason for hope.
The maple trees dotted across The Yard cling to their green, as red and orange threatens to steal their foliage.
Howard University president Ben Vinson III stands on the stage, while his students stand beneath the trees.
“Tonight you bask in the shade of our trees … Each tree is a signal – standing tall with ancient roots, nourished in the rich soil, sewn by our ancestors.”
Vinson says Howard was founded on a promise to complete America. To do that, men and women must be armed with the power of education, he says.
For Jack Lobel, a win is getting Gen Z to the polls. The 20-year-old runs the voter mobilisation advocacy group Voters of Tomorrow, along with Marianna Pecora. 
Lobel is a young white man. Trump has built a base of young, white men. What does he think about that?
“As a young, white man I despise Donald Trump,” Lobel says.
“He represents everything that Gen Z stands against: chaos, division, fear,” Lobel says.
“He wants to take away our healthcare, our reproductive freedoms, and our education … We are the most educated generation in American history, and that gives us the knowledge, perspectives and skills we need to stand up for ourselves.”
If you’re wondering, Lobel is feeling optimistic the result will go his way.
The crowd is holding on to hope as best it can, but the nerves are showing.
Three women, not more than 50 metres from the tiered seating area sit down on the ground, slouched. They look exhausted.
Then the first boos of the evening come as Trump inches ahead in the key battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina.
Just before 10pm, John King stands at CNN’s “Magic Wall” and tells viewers Harris is ahead in Iowa, following that all-important Iowa poll. It seems they need something to cheer about.
But King reminds the country there are still a lot of counties that haven’t finished counting their ballots. Many are likely to go red.
Shortly before 10pm I realise I haven’t eaten. I buy the only vegetarian item from the only food vendor on campus. I’m informed Chick-fil-A is owned by conservative Christians, and the company has had run-ins with allegations of racism. It seems a strange fit for Howard University.
I eat the piece of cheese in a bun anyway.
When I return to the press pen, almost everyone in the crowd is holding a US flag.
They wave the flags with abandon. The atmosphere is lifting again. Surely, the presidential candidate is to follow the paraphernalia handed out by her campaign.
I hear Harris supporters tell at least four journalists desperately scratching around for content some variation of the sentence: “I’m still hopeful.”
The fizzle is real. 
Groups begin to leave The Yard. The event is due to finish at 11.30pm but there is still no sign of the vice president.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi walks past me, surrounded by minders. The VIPs are being housed in the same building as the media filing room. Hopefully, this explains why two young men in suits with an air of confused authority tried to stop me using the bathroom a few minutes earlier.
The results keep trickling in. It’s getting harder to see Harris’ path to 270.
Trump has mobilised the electorate in a way it seems only he can.
But the reports of high voter turnout rolling in throughout the day (a win for democracy) have been juxtaposed with bomb threat hoaxes, quickly traced to Russia, along with the ongoing suggestions of election fraud and tampering (definite threats to democracy).
These factors mean people have always expected to wait a day, or maybe even two, for a result – especially in those battleground states that have been too close to call in the final days of the campaign. 
And if a county refuses to certify election results or if voters need to verify their signatures, the process will drag out further.
But delays spurred by allegations of election fraud were only ever truly a possibility if Harris was projected to win. That’s looking less and less likely.
The livestream I’m watching on my phone cuts to a shot outside Howard University, where a motorcade rushes past.
Those still standing on The Yard might have seen the same thing. Someone starts chanting Ka-ma-la! Ka-ma-la!
The person who responds isn’t the person they’re hoping for.
Harris campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond emerges from the Founders Library building and stalks towards the microphone at the front of the stage. This is a man who appears to have drawn the short straw.
Richmond gives a half-hearted shout-out to ‘H-U!’, before telling the crowd the vice president won’t be coming out tonight.
Tonight, they will continue to make every vote is counted, he says. She will see you tomorrow.
Within minutes, the diehards disperse. Those who were so hopeful for a different tomorrow go home to brace themselves for what’s to come.
Harris’ party is over. She didn’t attend.