11:25 AM: The End
CNN HAS CALLED THE ELECTION FOR BIDEN
—Nate Silver
3 PM: Victory Lap
When I saw Nate Silver’s post, I was mindlessly staring at my computer with four windows open to different election live election blogs, as I had been for much of the past five 105 days. I’d been pretending that I was going to write something else, maybe some fiction picking up where I left off at the exit to the CNN election bunker.
Less than a minute after the call came, I heard the first car horns sound outside. It took me a minute to get myself together, but I was soon on my bike and following the crowds. I thought I would roll through a few neighborhoods, but all the sidewalks and streets were flowing towards the White House. At Black Lives Matter plaza, dozens of reporters spoke unfamiliar languages into cameras pointing towards the White House. Their shots were quickly swarmed with bicyclists and dancers and flag wavers and crowds tripping over their tripod stands.
I took a victory lap around the fortified White House complex on my bike. Drivers did the same, creating a happy traffic jam of honking horns and passengers standing up to wave and cheer through open sunroofs. Wonder Woman zipped through on a red moped.
At McPherson Square, a gogo truck set the mood with dancing in the sun of this perfect 70 degree day.
