Whether or not you voted (and we hope you did), you probably couldn’t avoid talk of the election on Tuesday night. Almost every trending hashtag on Twitter had something to do with it and several bars in Denton hosted watch parties.

If you weren’t frantically checking polling numbers and keeping up with the latest wins and losses, check out our election results for Denton County, which list everything from federal and state races (including the race for the U.S. Senate and Texas governor) to local races like county judge and criminal district attorney.

I just started as culture editor for The Dentonite, so Tuesday night was an exciting, exhilarating and also very nerve-wracking night for me. I hung out at Dan’s Silver Leaf all night (where we hosted a watch party) live tweeting election results, handing out mini American flags and being incorrectly identified as a Dan’s employee.

One of our fellow contributors covered the election night for a class which included polling locations at the North Lakes Recreation Center, Krum ISD administration building and the Denton Wesley Foundation at UNT.

Many people on Twitter urged voters to stay in line if they found themselves inching close to the 7 p.m. mark and others educated their followers on voters’ rights at the polls. Some polling locations in Denton had a line of voters out the door after 7 p.m. and polling numbers slowly trickled in throughout the night.

Some publications used hashtags such as #DentonVotes and #ntTVVotes to chronicle the night. There was, not surprisingly, a lot of action at UNT. Students marched through campus during the day urging people to vote and there was a long line in the late afternoon at the Denton Wesley Foundation.

We had a considerable turnout of people at Dan’s eager to watch the results pour in over a glass of beer and lively conversation. The room was filled with palpable anxiety, but there was also a sense of hope. Each time the results for the race between Beto O’Rourke and incumbent Ted Cruz flashed on the screen, patrons cheered or booed.

Ted Cruz ended up beating Beto O’Rourke by less than 3 points. A record number of people voted in Denton County - over half of registered voters!

There were a lot of victories outside of Texas. Over 100 women were elected to serve in Congress, including many women of color. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress and Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids are the first Native American women to serve in Congress.

Whether or not the candidates you voted for won on Tuesday night, it was a night to remember. If you’re feeling sad and disheartened or even more passionate about fighting for marginalized people, you are valid in that.

Header image by Samuel Gomez.

Header design by Tori Falcon.