The campaign and election season has drawn to a close, and students from the Washington Hillsdale Internship Program are experiencing Washington, D.C., as it prepares for a new president. 

“We had a little Hillsdale election watch party in one of the class spaces that we have,” junior Adeline Kaufman said. “I would say everyone has been very cautiously excited over the past week, not wanting to get their heads up too much, but at the same time, taking in all of the information, a lot of signs pointing in a positive direction.” 

Kaufman, who interns for the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, said at the office many have been anxiously awaiting the results of the election for the last few weeks. 

“It felt a little bit like Christmas Eve on Monday night,” she said. “We were like, ‘I don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring,’ and I hope it’s going to be good.” 

With recent Vice President Kamala Harris’s election night rally taking place in D.C., Kaufman said the Capitol Police were no more present than usual.

“My boss described the city accurately when she said, ‘obviously there’s some barricades up by the White House and by the Capitol, but the city is much less boarded up than Twitter would have you believe,’” she said. “Honestly, things have been surprisingly calm.”

Although the atmosphere in D.C. has remained calm throughout the weeks leading up the election, the day after the election was filled with excitement both at work and at Hillsdale’s D.C. campus, Kaufman said. 

“The morning was actually rather quiet, because people were up so late last night a lot of staff rolled in later in the morning, but it was just every time someone came into the building, it was very celebratory,” Kaufman said. “It felt like a huge sigh of relief across the board. Then we had an all staff meeting with the president of the foundation, Kevin Roberts, and that was a very exciting event to hear the plans moving forward.” 

Both junior Joel Esler and senior Eli Redding said they saw a noticeable lack of people out in the city on Wednesday after the election.

“Just walking to work, there was no one out,” Redding said. “Like that was the thing, it was the most empty walk to work ever.”

Esler attended an election night party with D.C. based conservative think tank American Moment.

“Around 12 a.m. yesterday, and people were starting to leave the party because they hadn’t called a state in a little while, when the people hosting showed up with McDonalds,” Elser said. “There were so many nuggets, there were so many fries. Earlier, there were hors d’oeuvres, which waiters were offering, but now, instead of hors d’oeuvres, there were McNuggets on the plates that they would walk around with, and you could dip them in sauce. Victory tasted pretty good for 12:30 in the morning.”

Esler said there was some tension at the Hillsdale in D.C. campus before the election, but ultimately there was celebration.

“People at Hillsdale were a little nervous before the election, I think,” Esler said. “They were joking like ‘Oh, are we gonna have a country tomorrow?’ But in general, people are pretty happy.”

Senior Eli Redding leads ghost tours of bars at night time. He said one night he spoke with some women concerned with abortion rights when they asked him what he thought about the election.

“I was pretty open and honest,” Redding said. “First of all, I think you know Jesus is still on the throne. No matter what happens, I’m not really too concerned about it.”

As a conservative in disagreement, he said he went on to talk about the voting with them and said it never got too heated.

“So far I’ve had a couple of political conversations with people, and it’s never turned angry,” he said. “I think it’s just about the way you can present it.”

Redding said he celebrated the Trump win as soon as he learned about it.

“When we watched Trump win around 2:30 in the morning, we all took a shot, and did our little Trump dances.”

Therese Williams contributed to this article.