WiNK

This year, Election Day turned into Election Week, and for many Americans, it might have been one of the most stressful weeks of all time; or at least it was for me. As I talked about in the article I wrote two weeks ago, I spent Election Night in Wilmington, Delaware, and was in attendance for Joe Biden's Election Night speech. I spent the entire train ride home watching MSNBC on my phone to see if any updates were coming in, and spent my time at school on Thursday and Friday constantly refreshing news browsers on my computer, and getting as much live TV news in as I could. When I got home from school, my eyes were glued to the TV, hoping for an update from Arizona, Georgia, Nevada or Pennsylvania, and stayed up really late doing so.

As the week went on, the Biden campaign grew more and more confident that they were going to end up victorious, so they started planning a victory event. On Thursday night, my mom got a text from my grandpa saying that he was invited to Biden's victory speech that could happen either Friday or Saturday night, and asked if we wanted to come with him. I enjoyed my experience so much on Election night, so attending again was a no-brainer.

During my English class on Friday, November 6, while I was spamming the refresh button on my CNN browser, it was reported that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were going to address the nation at primetime from the Riverfront in Wilmington. I immediately texted my mom the news, and just to make sure we got down in time, and she told my brother, Will, to meet us at the car, and we left school and headed down to Delaware. We left around 2:00pm, which was cutting it close to a possible speech, since the security line was expected to be very long. It was also an added stress that our grandparents were at their beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, which is about an hour and half drive from Wilmington, and were refusing to drive back to Wilmington unless Biden was officially elected President.

Luckily for us, it became clear a few hours after our arrival that there would be no victory speech on Friday. Biden did address the nation at about 10:45pm from inside the Chase Center in Wilmington in front of only the media. His speech was short, and similar to his speech on Tuesday night, in which he expressed his confidence that he would end up victorious, but did not declare victory.

On Saturday morning, my mom, brother and I went to a Wawa for breakfast, and on the way home, drove by Joe Biden's street. There were cops blocking the entrance to the neighborhood, so we weren't allowed too close to the house, but it was still cool to see. My grandparents live less than five minutes away from Joe, so we made it home a few minutes later. When we got into the house, I looked at my phone and saw two texts, both from four minutes prior. One was from my grandpa that said "CNN says Biden wins!" and the other was from Lily Newman with a screenshot of the NBC News article that projected Biden as the winner. We immediately turned on the TV to see the MSNBC had just called Pennsylvania for Biden, therefore making him President-Elect.

It was ironic that after four days of religiously watching TV news, I happen to miss the exact moment the Presidency was called for Biden. However, after looking at the timestamps of the texts I received, I concluded that we were right by Joe Biden's house when the election was called. Vice-President Elect, Kamala Harris, received the news while out on a jog with her husband, Doug Emhoff, and called Joe to tell him the news that he most likely already knew. Kamala was also not too far from my grandparents house, and if we had taken a different route home from Wawa, maybe we could have passed her jogging along the side of the road, which is so cool to think about.

Since the news was finally official, my grandparents cancelled their lunch plans in Rehoboth, and made their way up to Wilmington to get ready for the victory speech which was scheduled for 8pm that night.

We arrived at the Riverfront around 4:00pm, and were able to make it near the front of the line. I had suggested that we bring our credentials from Tuesday night just in case we needed them, and that idea came in handy, as the police let us skip most of the line when we showed them our credentials. We spent about 15 minutes waiting for the gates to open, and then swiftly went through security, which was run by the Secret Service. We were able to get a spot in the first row right behind the prop cars, which were Jeeps, Fords, and other American-made cars, so we were as close as anyone could get to the stage. We spent the next four hours talking to people all around us (all in masks!), and everyone was just so happy and excited to be there.

In the car next to us was the State Representative of the Fourth Congressional District of Delaware, Gerald Brady, so I spent a lot of time talking to him and his family. My mom talked to the man who was Joe Biden's college roommate at University of Delaware, and was with Joe the day Joe met his first wife, Neilia. My mom got to hear the whole story about how Joe and Neilia met from the point of view of Joe's friend, which she later told me, so that could eventually become its own WiNK article at some point. My mom also got interviewed by the Washington Post, and you can read the article she was featured in here.

After hours of waiting, Joe and Kamala's motorcade made its way into the venue around 7:50pm. The anticipation only grew stronger and stronger, and finally, around 8:30pm, "Work That" by Mary J. Blige started playing over the loudspeakers, and out came Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris. The way we were positioned made it harder for us to hear the speech compared to Tuesday, but we could still hear it well enough. Once Kamala was done speaking, she introduced President-Elect Joe Biden, who jogged his way up the stage and to the podium with "We Take Care of Our Own" by Bruce Springstein playing in the background. The atmosphere in that venue was absolutely electric. The only way I could describe it is if the Philadelphia Eagles were in the Super Bowl, and the Super Bowl was in Philadelphia. People were that excited to see Joe.

Joe's speech was much longer than his speeches throughout the week, and he called for unity, and promised to represent the entire United States of America, not just "Red States" or "Blue States." Once Joe was done speaking, an amazing fireworks show was displayed over the baseball stadium next door. The fireworks were unlike anything I've ever seen before, as words and animations were displayed by drones in the sky. If you haven't already you can watch both speeches, as well as the fireworks display here. If you want to see the fireworks display from my point of view, and really hear how excited the crowd was, you can click this link.

During the fireworks, multiple songs were played, but most notably, "A Sky Full of Stars" by Coldplay was played. Not everyone knows this, but Joe Biden's life has had its fair-share of tragedies. In the 1970s, Joe's first wife, Neilia, and his daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car accident. His sons, Hunter and Beau, were also in the car but survived. In fact, Biden was sworn into office as a Senator in the boys' hospital room. This tragedy was unfortunately only the beginning for Joe, as in the late 1980s, he had a brain aneurysm that almost took his life, and most recently in 2015, Joe lost his son, Beau, to a brain tumor. This brings me back to the Coldplay song, as Beau Biden's favorite band was Coldplay, with "A Sky Full of Stars" being one of his favorite songs. Chris Martin from Coldplay sang at Beau's funeral, and has always supported the Biden family.

Once the fireworks were finished, and Joe, Kamala, and their families made their way backstage, and the State Representative I mentioned earlier, found his way up to the stage, so we followed him up. I got to stand at the podium that our future President and Vice President had just spoken at only minutes prior, and got to look out and see what they saw as they were speaking. I also got to see cool production quirks that you don't see on TV, such as a step-stool that Kamala stood on during her speech, as well as two untouched glasses of water hidden in the podium, just in case either Joe or Kamala got thirsty during their speeches. I also made my way backstage to see the monitors that Joe watched Kamala's speech on prior to being introduced, and then got to jog up the ramp that Joe jogged up earlier, which was so cool.

When we were on the stage, crews were already in the process of taking the stage down, so all of the flags that were behind the podium were laying on the ground and were up for grabs, so people like me were starting to take some of them, which seemed to be ok with security. Strangely enough, I decided to take the metal eagle off of the top of the flag that was behind Joe and Kamala's right shoulder during their speeches, and take it home with me. We were also given a white Biden-Harris traffic cone to take home with us, as well as a massive American flag that was given to my brother to wave during the speeches. These artifacts will be something I will hold onto forever so I never forget that night.

Overall, November 7, 2020, is a date I'll never forget. I thought that Election night was cool, but it felt like a preseason game compared to the Super Bowl that was Saturday night. I am glad that I got to be a part of history, and see the crowning of a new President, and the first ever female Vice President. However, I am also happy that the election is finally over. We knew that it would take longer to find out the results of this years' election due to mail in and early voting, but I didn't know it would be as stressful as it was. Yes, there are many legal proceedings currently taking place from the Trump administration, and it seems like there will not be a concession from the President, but it's pretty clear that Trump's chances of overturning enough of the results to take away the 36 electoral votes that Biden has over the 270 threshold is very unlikely. Now, I am hoping that I will be able to go to the inauguration in January, but we'll see what that will look like.

*I just want to finish this off by making note of a disclaimer about all of this. This article was supposed to run last Friday, however, that morning I tested positive for COVID-19. I was not at school for the entire week after returning from Delaware, as I was awaiting my test results, so I did not come in contact with any Wooster community members while infectious. However, every person I came in contact with at the speech (that we know of), as well as throughout the week, tested negative, including my entire family. A false positive is a possibility, but regardless I have been quarantined in my room since my diagnosis, despite being completely asymptomatic. We held off on posting this article last week due to my positive test, but we are pretty confident that I did not contract the virus from attending the speech.*

If you want a Biden-Harris playlist, I thought I would list all the songs used during the event so here they are:

Kamala Harris Entrance- "Work That" Mary J. Blige

Joe Biden Entrance- "We Take Care of Our Own" Bruce Springstein

Post Speech and Fireworks- "Higher & Higher" Jackie Wilson, "Higher Love" Kygo & Whitney Houston, "I Won't Back Down" Tom Petty, "A Sky Full of Stars" Coldplay, "You Make My Dreams" Daryl Hall & John Oats, "The Best" Tina Turner, "We the People" The Staple Singers