During the UK election in July, I doubt many students in the US gathered around a TV to find out who would become MP for St Neots and Mid Cambridge. But when it came to deciding the 47th US President last Tuesday, Cantabs were spoilt for choice in terms of election watch parties. With the promise of election-themed drinks, I opted to go to Clare Politics Society’s screening held at Clare Cellars.

Ahead of election night, I wanted to find out how American Cambridge students were feeling. Josie Iino, Undergraduate President of Cambridge American Society, told me that though miles from home, the “American community at Cambridge is politically engaged”, in fact, she said she’d followed the election “more closely exactly because [she] is abroad”. Josie thought that “reproductive rights, the environment, foreign policy, immigration”, and “social issues” would be decisive and said she was “hopeful” Harris would take the win, basing her decision on the projections of key pollsters like Allan Litchman and Ann Selzer. However, she stressed that within the American student community at Cambridge, there is a “diversity of political opinion”, and the society did not “endorse any candidate”.

The “American community at Cambridge is politically engaged”, in fact, she said she’d followed the election “more closely exactly because [she] is abroad”

The election watch party at Cellars kicked off at 9pm UK time, and before any states had been called, I spoke to Clare Politics Society’s co-presidents, Kiran Davies and Beth Fransham, and Speakers’ Officer Harry Ford, about the event. Kiran told me that they’d decided to host a watch party because he saw this election “as the most momentous occasion in politics in the last 20 years” and was highly conscious of the global reverberations of the result. Beth agreed, and said “there is a lot of anxiety in our generation” about the future of politics and argued that the “healthiest way to deal with this anxiety” was “to face up to it”. In spite of this, the event was intended to be sociable. All three committee members spoke of the excited atmosphere at this point in the evening, and Harry noted that “for better or for worse”, the US election provides a “much more entertaining version of politics”.

Kiran, Beth and Harry all predicted that Harris would take the White House. Kiran told me he was “almost more than convinced” that Harris would win as he thought the “pollsters were hedging their bets” and the betting markets had been manipulated. Though he acknowledged that “We’re not living in America and experiencing high prices”, he said he’d be willing to put a “fair bit of money on” Kamala but added, “If this gets published after the election, I’ll have egg on my face” (sorry, Kiran).

“A poll taken by the presidents before the event found that of the 60 respondents, over 80% thought Harris would defeat Trump”

Beth believed Harris would win on two issues: “turnout” and “abortion”, which she thought would be a decisive and “mobilising issue” among American women. Though Harry was not “quite as strongly convinced” that Harris would win, he thought that the “perception of Trump support is stronger than it actually is”, amplified by Elon Musk on X. He added that having interviewed historian Allan Lichtman, creator of the ‘13 Keys’ theory, last week he thought Harris would be elected president. Litchman had successfully predicted the majority of election results since 1984, and, according to Harry, he sounded “incredibly confident” that Harris would win. The Clare Politics Society committee reflected the wider mood: a poll taken by the presidents before the event found that of the 60 respondents, over 80% thought Harris would defeat Trump.

I am conscious at this point to clarify that not all Cambridge students supported Kamala Harris. However, the vast majority (if not all) of the attendees at the Cellars’ watch party were either for Harris or did not articulate their support for Trump. Reactions to the results reflected this.

As the first projections came through at around midnight, spirits were high. Things were going as expected, and the consensus was, as summarised by attendee George Lloyd, that “Enough Americans are gonna look at The Donald and say I can’t in good conscience vote for him”. The atmosphere was tense but buzzy. The red and blue drinks were flowing as we flicked between Channel 4 and CNN.

“Many of us hadn’t anticipated how much the election would affect us emotionally”

At around 2am, our numbers depleted by tiredness and looming 9ams, we decided to capitalise on the lull between projections and fortify ourselves with a Van of Life. Normally, the wait for our cheesy chips is passed with post-club gossip, but tonight, there was a quiet queasiness. Many of us hadn’t anticipated how much the election would affect us emotionally. Rose Atkins, a student at Clare, reflected, “It feels like I’m placing a lot of symbolic value on [the result], which makes it incredibly emotionally charged. The issue of abortion feels like a huge hurdle for women to overcome, and I’m so overwhelmed”. Though nervous at seeing many states projected Republican, the mood was optimistic, as Caitlin Hardie told me, “I’m not panicking at this point, it’s just the Red Mirage.”

From 3am, something shifted. It became clear that Trump was performing better in the swing states than most of us had expected, particularly in Pennsylvania, a “blue wall” state which Kamala would need to win to reach 270 electoral votes. Media sites, such as The Guardian, began publishing their predictions that Trump would return to the White House. A collective “oh” hung in the air, and the room, which had been sloshing with pints and chatter just a couple of hours earlier, was now eerily quiet. We stared at the TV and were humbled.

A collective “oh” hung in the air, and the room, which had been sloshing with pints and chatter just a couple of hours earlier, was now eerily quiet

“I’m still hopeful,” Harry said at 3:25am. Just half an hour later, he told me, “I’m feeling less hopeful now”. We had to be out of Cellars by 4, so began collecting empties and shuffling them to the bar. We woke those who’d been soothed to sleep by the dancing CNN maps; when we told them what the polls were saying, there was bleary disbelief.

At 4:30, I walked back home through an empty Market Square. Nothing was confirmed yet, but we knew what we’d wake up to tomorrow. I felt (and feel) disorientated, I’d thought I’d followed the election; media outlets I trusted had predicted Harris would win. My faith in The Rest Is Politics has been irrevocably shaken. In fairness, Rory Stewart did say that he’d rather be optimistically wrong, than pessimistically right.

Over the past couple of days, I have had some time to reflect on why I was so surprised by Trump’s victory. He is a messianic figure to his devoted supporters, and Kamala Harris’ race and gender were always going to put off many American voters. I knew this, yet I allowed myself to retreat into my cosy Cambridge echo chamber (I’m aware that there are Cambridge students who support Trump, but I’d argue they’re in the minority). Only once during election night did we watch Fox News, merely “for a laugh”; this patronising snobbery is exactly why I was so stupefied by the election result and speaks to a wider issue on the Democrat side. Though Harris, unlike the Clinton campaign in 2016, declared herself a politician for every American, promising to give those who disagreed with her “a seat at the table”, many Democrat voters failed to seriously engage with Trump or his supporters. As Kiran said on election night, we often view Trump as this “mad guy”, but he is a persuasive politician; the speeches we mocked appeal to millions of disenfranchised Americans.

Cambridge students are bright but not infallible; we must remember to look beyond the “Cambridge bubble” and open our eyes to the world beyond our city’s gothic spires. Though for many of us, the results of the US election are frightening, on Tuesday evening, Beth made a poignant point; “Politics can be so overwhelming” it might seem like “the easiest thing to do in the face of all this anxiety-inducing information is to turn away from it, but it is so important that we face it, and reckon with what is going on in the world”. After Tuesday night, I am a lot more jaded but hopefully a little wiser than I was before.