If we’re being honest, my first election nights are such distant memories that I don’t remember everything about them. I remember watching when Bill Clinton was elected President in 1993. I remember my best friend’s dad’s election nights when he ran for Township Supervisor. Of course, I remember 2000. The first time I was involved myself was 2002. I was a freshman in college and interning on the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign for Ed Rendell for Governor and Ed O’Brien for Congress. I couldn’t even drink yet, not to mention I was recovering from mono, and basically had to watch in horror as the Democratic Party, especially the candidates I looked up to most (those opposing the Iraq War) fell one by one across the country that night. Anger is a helluva fuel though.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the big ones though. Five years ago tonight was the 2020 Biden-Trump election night, a long, long night in which many of you freaked out and lost your minds. It was covid, vote-by-mail was new in a lot of places, and well, it was competitive. It took until Saturday to finally declare Joe Biden had won, despite a record breaking number of votes, and maybe that is what we should remember from that night. It was supposed to be the most consequential election of our time. It may have been, but how is not as obvious now as many of us thought it would be. Instead it looks like the pause button on the direction of our times, a moment when Democrats didn’t Democrat away the election and for a brief moment the Trump momentum was stopped. It was a brief moment though.

Four years earlier was quite a different story. I wasn’t as shocked Trump won as most people. It also didn’t take days to decide. It was clear by about 11pm that this was not 2012, the math wasn’t foregone, and we were in for a surprise. That hotel room in Elizabeth City was tense as hell. Especially when I was being told I had to be ready for recounts the next morning for Governor and State House.

Of course there were happier times. 2008 in Harrisburg capped off just a week of happiness after the Phillies won the World Series. The truth is that I didn’t love Harrisburg. Everyone there is go alone to get along, and I’m not. Neither really was our team at HDCC though. We gained seats that year, in spite of the polarization of that Obama electorate and the uphill battle of Bonusgate indictments. No one matched for many years, until the maps were drawn in a much more fair and equitable way.

2012 in New Jersey was less in question, but equally fun. I look back on it differently since the top of our ticket got into legal trouble. I still really liked the people I worked with though. It was an experience I learned a lot from.

Want a weird election night? January 5th, 2020, in Georgia. I was in Cobb County doing a paid canvass for the DSCC. We had no real way to know what would happen the next day in Washington, DC, or that half the country wouldn’t care about it, because that night the biggest story in the country was those Georgia Senate run-offs. And being in Metro Atlanta was amazing. It was as fun as any place in the world could have been during COVID.

Ok, so Super Tuesday of 2020- the best. I had Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Oklahoma as the digital organizer, and we won all three. I called my shot on Massachusetts hours earlier and Anita Dunn (no, she doesn’t know me or anything) told me I was crazy. Well, we put the Elizabeth Warren campaign to a merciful rest that night. I’m proud of that.

The election I’m most proud of was still 2023 though, one of my last ones to date. I only took on Judge Timika Lane that year. Her campaign for Superior Court was always going to be hard, I knew that. We did it though, even if I lost years off of my life from the experience. She’s a great judge and Pennsylvania is better for her service. More importantly, she’s a wonderful friend and I’m grateful to have been a part of it.

Maybe the weirdest was 2022. I was working at a mail firm and most of my work was on the West Coast. So my mornings were quiet and I had no events to really go to. I also live in maybe the most swing place in America, so a rather active campaign was going on around me. It was a weird dichotomy.

I’ve done a couple of Iowa Caucuses. They’re a fun event. Both times, I ended up in a bar with Tim Ryan of Ohio after the event ended. Not just with him, the first time Congressman Rick Nolan and others were along. The second time wasn’t in Des Moines, but Council Bluffs, Iowa with our volunteers. Again, fun times.

I have had more election nights than I can count. And it’s just about time for me to head out to watch results. Enjoy your nights, stay safe friends, and we’ll talk more about this later.