Positive vibes at Trump’s South Florida election night party as first results post
Supporters and allies of former President Donald Trump anxiously watched the first results of the presidential election post on Tuesday evening as polls closed across the country and Americans braced for a potentially long and contentious vote count.
Trickling into the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, where Trump's campaign is holding its election night watch party, the former president's die-hard boosters eagerly awaited any clue about whether voters would send Trump back to the White House or reject him for a second time in a row.
Outside the ballroom, campaign workers passed out red "Make America Great Again" hats to people walking by, while guests took turns posing for photos in front of an imposing black and red campaign background speckled with American flags.
Inside, massive television screens blared CNN's election night coverage as vote counts from across the country poured in. As different states were called for Trump — Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia — the room broke out into cheers.
When Trump was declared the winner in Florida, his adopted home state, the crowd roared in delight. The former president carried the Sunshine State by more than 1.3 million votes, or about 13 percentage points, the largest margin of any candidate in 36 years.
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Sitting at a table with his eyes fixed on one of the several TV screens lining the room, Dan Backer, a 47-year-old attorney and conservative activist from Pompano Beach, said that he was "cautiously optimistic" about Trump's chances of reclaiming the White House.
"I don't want to get ahead of myself. I think it's going to come down to Pennsylvania, most likely, but we'll see," he said. "Republicans are up in early voting and mail voting and a lot of us still tend to vote today, so that's a good sign."
Gayle Trotter, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and political analyst, said that she doesn't "have any doubt" that Trump will come out on top. She argued that public polls, which have shown Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris deadlocked for weeks, had likely failed to capture Trump's true popularity and predicted a stronger-than-expected showing for the former president on Tuesday night.
"I'm confident, I'm very excited, I think Trump is going to over-perform all the polls as he's done in the past," Trotter said. "I think they under-represent the support that he has."
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It's unclear, however, when the race will be called. While results from a handful of states —including Georgia, a key presidential battleground — are expected relatively early, both Trump and Harris' campaigns are gearing up for a prolonged count in other battlegrounds, like Pennsylvania.
Trump is expected to address supporters at the Palm Beach County Convention Center either late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.
With the vote count far from finished, though, Backer said that he hopes Trump will declare victory in the race sooner rather than later and shouldn't concede defeat.
"He should declare victory right now. He should declare defeat never. But know what it looks like when it's over," Backer said "The process sometimes is a little messy. You gotta see what happens."
