At Harvard Institute of Politics Election Watch Party, Hope and Disappointment

A jubilant mood at the Harvard Institute of Politics election watch party at the JFK Jr. Forum Thursday night turned dour as former President Donald Trump took an early lead in the presidential election results.

Though the event ended at 11:00 p.m. — before the key swing states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania were called for Trump — a crowd of largely Harvard Kennedy School students, including many international students, left the event feeling like Vice President Kamala Harris’s path to victory was narrowing.

Attorney Terrance J. McCarthy, who attended the party and described himself as a lifelong Democrat, said toward the end of the event that he felt “a little disgusted.”

“It looks like Trump’s winning, but you know, it’s still early to tell,” he said.

The watch party came after an IOP forum, moderated by journalist and IOP Fellow Eugene Scott, about public opinion and the electorate heading into the election. It began with introductions from Harvard Republican Club President Michael Oved ’25 and Harvard College Democrats Co-Presidents Tova L. Kaplan ’26 and Victor E. Flores ’25.

Scott emphasized the importance of youth engagement, saying that “students aren’t turning a blind eye at all” to their leaders in an interview.

“Instead, they’re just deeply engaged,” he added.

He was joined by Brilyn Hollyhand, an 18-year-old political commentator who chairs the Republican National Committee Youth Advisory Council; Adam Jentleson, the former chief of staff for Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.); and Sabrina Rodriguez, a national politics reporter for the Washington Post.

“Most of the speakers you saw today are speakers that have been at the IOP before,” IOP JFK Jr. Forum Co-Chair Kirthi Chigurupati ’26 said in an interview, adding that they were invited to provide “an analysis of what they think about the state of the race.”

Attendees of the event were on the edges of their seats as CNN election coverage played on the forum’s large projector screen.

“There’s quite a bit of anxiety in the air about how this turns out,” said Ryan T. Prior, a master’s of public administration student at the Harvard Kennedy School. “People are excited to watch it in the forum, and to be in a really cool place on the historic night is a good opportunity for everybody.”

Though many of the attendees in the crowd were international students — who make up 59 percent of the HKS student body — they said they were still invested in the outcome of the election.

Harvard Law School student Isabella Leal Aguilar, who is Mexican, said she was thinking about how the election would “politically affect elements with my home country.”

“What happens politically in the U.S. always has a strong impact in Mexico, and currently, with how political elements have been, either result could have very interesting and different outcomes,” she said.

Betzael Bravo Fuentes, a student at the Harvard School of Public Health and a U.S.-Mexico dual-citizen, said he believes immigration is a critical issue at stake this election cycle.

“My personal preference will be to have somebody in the White House who’s understanding of the situation of people who are already in the U.S. without the status or path to citizenship,” he said.

Though the crowd appeared to lean heavily blue, cheering loudly when states were called in Harris’s favor, some students said they were instead supporting Trump.

“The country and the world was a lot better place when he was president,” Robert J. Oswald, an HKS mid-career program student, said.

“I think he is going to get reelected tonight, and I’ve been saying that for a little while now, and I think the best precursor or predictor of him getting elected is the fact that he’s been ahead in the early voting, which essentially is unheard of for Republicans,” Oswald added.

Despite the lingering uncertainty as the party ended, some attendees remained optimistic about the future of the country long term.

“This is the election of 2024. There will be another election in two years, there will be another election after that,” Jonathan Hutchison, a U.S. Marine enrolled in the HKS Executive Education program.

“What I am encouraged by is the amount of passion and excitement that I feel and see in this room,” he added. “I hope, regardless of who wins or loses, whether that’s the candidate that they supported, that the young people and the students at Harvard will continue to be engaged in the political process.”