The thrill of working during Election Day

When I became a news reporter four years ago, I can honestly admit I did not have much of an interest in politics. Once I got in the field, however, I quickly became interested.

The time leading up to covering my first election in 2016, I was nervous and anxious about having to work on Election Day. I knew it would be a long and late day and I did not know what to expect when going out to “watch parties” the various candidates were hosting.

As I got to a “watch party,” I became more and more interested in the process and began to enjoy waiting around to see how the election results would play out.

I would eagerly keep refreshing my phone browser to see if the board of elections updated any results for any of the races that I was following.

Doing that was kind of thrilling to me, especially as the results started to be posted online. It was interesting seeing all the campaign workers tally up results that people were feeding them and trying to determine what districts their candidates won or lost in the beginning stages of the night.

The vibe of “watch parties” always seems to be positive and upbeat and then once the candidate enters the party, everyone greets them with excitement, support, and words of encouragement.

My favorite part of the night is towards the end of the night when a candidate determines that they have enough of a margin to “declare” victory or that they are losing by too much and have to announce that they are conceding.

Victory speeches are always more direct and easier to cover as a reporter since sometimes the losing candidates leave the party early without giving any comments to the media.

I hate when that happens since it feels like you waited around a couple of hours at their watch party for nothing and it makes it harder to put a story together without comments from them.

Another annoying part of election night is having to deal with the fact that any news stories that I do that night actually will not make it in our Wednesday print edition since our print deadline is way before the time that the polls close at 9 p.m.

But it’s still a thrill to be out at those parties and to come back to my computer late at night to try to at least get some stories online Tuesday night and ready for our print edition on Thursday.

As I write this column on Tuesday morning, I can say I am even more eager and excited to go out to cover the Troy mayoral race later in the night. I believe it is going to be a close race between Mayor Patrick Madden, Rodney Wiltshire, and Tom Reale, and I look forward to working more with whoever the winner of that race may end up being. Nick on the Record appears in print every Wednesday. Nicholas Buonanno is the assistant senior editor for The Record and can be reached at nbuonanno@ medianewsgroup.com