Despair subsided for Joe Biden's American supporters in Canberra as he pulled ahead in Pennsylvania and it grew obvious he would win the presidential election.
On Sunday the victory became official and confirmed what Democrats Abroad Australia ACT chairman Justin Underwood had started expecting: Biden would be elected the 46th United States president.
But the win didn't unfold the way Mr Underwood first predicted.
He went to the Democrats Abroad election party in Canberra on Wednesday thinking Biden would have a thumping victory that turned states like North Carolina, Florida and possibly Texas from red to blue.
When Donald Trump defied polls and his position strengthened on Wednesday, the mood changed at P.J O'Reilly's pub in the city, where ACT-based Democrats watched the results.
"Some of the people that were at the party I think went into a bit of despair and had been saying that they thought Trump had won," Mr Underwood said.
"I personally felt that it was just really, really close and you couldn't tell."
Mr Underwood expected the result would tighten in Pennsylvania, a state Trump needed for re-election but that candidates usually won by slim margins.
It grew clear Biden would win the election as he overtook the President there and remaining votes being counted favoured the Democratic candidate.
The result was the end of a long road starting with primaries, in which 100 Democratic Party members from Canberra voted.
A historic election then played out during a pandemic, an economic recession, national protests over racial injustice, and civil unrest.
Democrats Abroad members, part of an officially-recognised state party within the Democratic Party, planned to celebrate Biden's win with drinks at King O'Malley's on Sunday evening.
Mr Underwood wasn't surprised Trump refused to concede defeat.
"Donald Trump is a person who does not like it when things don't go his way. He's not a person who has ever been able to respond well to it," he said.
"He is in effect a spoilt child.
"For the first time in his life, it appears that he's in a situation where he has lost and there is no one that is in a position to or is willing to help him to change the result."
It would not matter if Trump does not concede, because the US constitution would support President-elect Biden's entrance to the White House, Mr Underwood said.
"The rule of law in the United States still stands."
Biden's presidency would return the White House to a governing style similar to the Obama administration, Mr Underwood said.
There was a tough job ahead for the President-elect to get US government bodies operating as they should again after years under Trump, he said.
"There are so many things Donald Trump has done that have caused problems both within the US and globally."
