It was a nerve-racking and disappointing night at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday, where key members and supporters of Katie McGinty’s senatorial campaign gathered together at her watch party, only to witness her loss to Republican incumbent Pat Toomey.
It certainly was a tough race for McGinty, who has never been elected into political office. With the polls leading up to the election forecasting a tight race, McGinty supporters had mixed emotions throughout the night.
“I’m feeling cautiously optimistic. I’m somehow both confident and uncertain at the same time,” Rachel Mumenthaler, a friend of the McGinty campaign, said early on in the night.
McGinty, who won the Democratic primary election for this Senate race in April, has been working hard to take on Toomey, who has been in office since 2011.
The increasing odds of a Trump victory added to the damper that McGinty’s loss created among her supporters at the event, who were closely following the presidential race as well.
With the presidential election turning out much closer than polls predicted, a nervous aura filled the room of Democrats. After Trump surged out to an early lead, many attendees did not know what to make of the results.
“States that shouldn’t be close, now somehow are extremely tight. I literally do not know what is happening,” said Benjamin Aitovmeziane, a freshman at Temple University who also served as a member of the financial team for the McGinty campaign.
College students from around the Philadelphia area who attended the event were heavily invested in both the senatorial and presidential elections. Many were directly involved in McGinty’s campaign through canvassing, advising or phone-banking.
McGinty began her campaign preparations over a year ago, bringing many of her close friends and co-workers onto her team. One notable member of her campaign was Christian Simeone, who worked with McGinty during her tenure as secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Simeone joined the McGinty team largely because she supported McGinty's “liberal social platform [as well as] her energy policy," she told The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Notable politicians from Pennsylvania were also at the event. Gov. Tom Wolf and senior Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) both gave speeches to raise the spirits of the audience around midnight, when the race was still up in the air.
Sen. Patrick Eiding, president of the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, which represents over 100 local unions, also played a prominent role in running the event.
“Katie [McGinty] is the best choice to represent labor unions in Philadelphia. She was born and bred in the city and comes from a working class family,” Eiding said.
He and members of the labor unions knocked on over 85,000 doors this past week to canvass for both McGinty and Clinton.
It was a suspenseful night for the McGinty and Clinton supporters who attended the watch party as both races came down to the wire. But after Toomey took a solid lead with a majority of the votes in, the morale of the attendees dropped quickly.
“I wish we could have had Katie in the Senate because [she advocated] for the common theme of being inclusive and stronger together,” said an anonymous friend of the McGinty campaign, lamenting her loss late Tuesday night.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly attributed a quotation from a source, while in fact this attribution was falsely given. The DP regrets this error.
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