What Are You Going to Do on Election Night? Other Than Freak Out

Our writer and her friends are getting very superstitious about how and where they will watch the results on November 5th.

Do not jinx the election! DO. NOT. JINX. IT. Do not buy paper cups and plates and disposable utensils in Democrat Blue. Do not stock up on champagne. Do not refer to anything that you are doing on November 5th as an “election party,” but instead, stick to a plan to “watch the results.” Do not mess with me on this, OK? Wait, am I yelling? Sorry. I’m kinda stressed. 

It’s time for my friends and I to start making plans for that Tuesday (which no doubt will bleed into Wednesday and beyond, right?) and to put it bluntly, we are freaking out. We all have post-2016, first-potential-female-president-running-against-Donald-Trump PTSD, and as such, have gotten mildly hysterical, highly superstitious, and utterly mean. 

I rode out the storm of the 2020 election at my house upstate New York with a small group of exhausted friends who, like me, had worked on Get Out The Vote events leading up to Election Day. That evening, we began with “Ridin’ With Biden” cocktails but quickly devolved into just lying around with limp hands draped over our eyes, numb and hopeful, not even hungry except for what could be called “sick food.” I remember lots of buttered toast around 2 or 3 a.m., a culinary practice that continued until it was finally called for Joe Biden days later.

So, I know what’s coming: sleepless nights, heart-pounding nausea, and the need to make blanket apologies for all the nasty things that I might yell in frustration over the course of the evening.

And now, with just two weeks (two weeks!) left, my crew and I are deep in discussions regarding where to gather for this potentially blessed or damning event—which will end with an inauguration and (the Jewish woman crosses herself) hopefully not an exorcism. 

More than a few of us have just said, “No gathering for me. Nope. I can’t be with anyone, and for that matter, I can’t leave my house. Maybe not for a few days.”

I get it. For 2016, I had nearly 40 people over, eating and drinking well ahead of the polls closing. There were fancy party items like Baked Brie En Croute among the endless array of snacks and hearty nibbles, and bubbly and bourbon and plenty of seltzer to keep us steady for what was going to be a loooooong night of frolic. Some of my guests were dressed up. Even my then 17-year-old kid and his besties, all in attendance, were psyched, pleading for the option of staying home from school the next day to mark such a historic event and in return, offering to help clean up the house. And then, well, you know what happened.

About three hours into the evening, a few voices rang out from the TV room, where some of the guests had claimed great sofa seats as soon as the returns began. When Indiana went to Trump it wasn’t a shock, though no one liked it one bit. As the pundits speculated, guests spread out around the house, turning on the stereo, poking around the kitchen, refreshing drinks, smoking joints. We all knew that nothing was really going to happen until Ohio was called, so the election party, temporarily, became just another party until about 10:30 p.m.  

“Ohio is about to be called, get your asses in here,” yelled one of my pals from her perch on the couch. Newly energized, everyone dashed back into the TV room, cocktail glasses in hand. Ohio was personal for me; my darling ex-husband is from Cincinnati and I was savoring the idea of his ultra-conservative relatives getting kicked in their proverbial polling places. But then, wait, what did they just say? 

We switched news channels, every guest now on their phones as well. The air was sucked out of the room; everyone puzzled, then agitated, then alarmed. Less than a half hour later, Florida was called, then North Carolina. Red. 

At this point, I was standing in the room with just one or two other guests; the rest had either dispersed to the living room in various catatonic stages, some crying. A bunch of people were outside on the lawn, speechlessly breathing the night air. Inside, I remember blankly yammering at a friend who was inches from the television, transfixed like me; two veritable Carol Annes in Poltergeist, babbling, “It’s going to be fine.”

The next few hours are fuzzy. Every news channel began talking about Clinton’s “fading hopes” of clinching at least a few of the battleground states, although we, the handful of people left in my TV room, kept reassuring each other that yes, it was possible. At one point, I was jumping up and down, emphasizing each word. Totally. Possible. 

Sometime around 2 a.m., the party was over. Everyone left as Pennsylvania was called (as a Philly Girl, I almost spit on my own floor) and I was alone, listlessly dragging around a garbage bag as they called Wisconsin, the clincher. 

Like many people, I stayed up all night and into the next few days. Do you remember how quiet it was? No one seemed to have any voice left. I took the train down to Manhattan for a meeting (never had I seen so many zombies with tear-stained faces riding Amtrak), and the client, a bigtime real estate developer, canceled as soon as he scanned the conference room. “Does anyone think this is a good idea?” Silence. He then announced he was closing his offices for the rest of the week and took us all to a bar near Penn Station. 

Can’t have any of that again, I keep whispering to myself as I pass by my TV room, noting that even though I’ve moved to a new house since 2016, I have the same television set. What if it is somehow cursed? 

OK, I know the TV is not cursed. 

But superstitions are nothing to laugh at these days. In fact, nothing feels like a laughing matter right about now.

Well, you may think this is funny: I know that regardless of where we watch the election results this year, I’ll be wearing my “lucky” Hanky Panky thong. I bought the blue, naturally, lacy underwear at a local boutique in 2012 after joking with friends that it would elicit all the good juju from the gods when I went to vote. I’ve worn that thong every election since, except in 2016, when I was feeling cocky. I apologize to the American people for my misstep.

Also, I need to swing by Fishs Eddy in the Flatiron District and grab a Kamala mug. I have always had one with my candidate’s face on it to sip coffee from on that Tuesday, and this year will be no different. Skip an election? You know I will not do that again.  

Store owner Julie Gaines told me that she has been stocking presidential candidate mugs (as well as one-offs, like her Oprah 2020 mug that made me smile) since the (Bill) Clinton era. “In much of the world if you voice your opinion publicly, you will pay a heavy price,” she told me. “So I unapologetically use my small business as a platform to exercise our position on matters that affect our lives, our community, and our children. Of course, we’re a New York business so it’s not a stretch to know which way we go on matters.”

She added that when she used to stock Republican mugs, in an effort to be “fair,” they widely under-performed against the Dem dishes. “Let’s put it this way: We always had to reorder the Democrat mugs, not so with the Republican ones.”

Gaines also confirms that I’m not alone in my superstition around these mugs. “This happens all the time, and with the Hillary mugs, people really went all in, hoping they were good luck,” she said. After the 2016 election, Gaines decided to stop selling Republican presidential candidate mugs—at that point, “no one wanted political anything.” 

Back to 2024, we’re still figuring out who wants to gather and who wants to sit tight. My latest idea is for us all to assemble at a local rental home that a friend owns, with a big flat screen and ginormous sectional sofa. No cursed TVs or triggering memories there—a nice neutral space that I hope might feel like a salve in a sea of stress. A place to potluck some sustenance and drinks and then go our own ways if the evening gets unbearable.

I’m also thinking that my newish relationship will have a better chance of surviving the night if there are other people around me if and when I turn into Linda Blair, head swiveling etc. 

This weekend, I took an informal poll and even my most steadfast, science-over-woo friends are rubbing worry beads, bowing to Mecca, avoiding cracks/mother’s back. Suffice to say, things are extremely witchy around here right now. I’m pulling tarot cards like crazy; tarot is my regular practice but during times of stress, I dive into the cards multiple times a day. While tarot is not meant to predict the future, when the cards are optimistic, I breathe a deep sigh of relief. 

No matter where we gather, I am making Ina Garten’s penne with five cheeses. We ate this exact dish in 2008 on the night of the first Obama election, and I’m counting on it to work its magic again. Pro tip: Make two or three pans of this. It’s delicious hot; it’s also good at room temperature once we hit the midnight hour; it’s passable cold as you are walking by the refrigerator, sobbing with stress, over the next day or so, and, if you’ve got kids, they can reheat some in the microwave while you lace up your boots to riot in the streets if duty calls.

Needless to say, if it’s good enough for Barack, it’s good enough for Kamala. But wait… there’s more. The recipe is based on a famous one from Rhode Island’s Al Forno restaurant. Rhode Island voted for Hillary in 2016, giving her four electoral votes. Four is my lucky number. Bet you’re going to sleep a little easier tonight, huh?

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