It’s not easy to throw a party in Washington on election night when your side is bracing for a wipeout. But at Butterworth’s, the French bistro that has been a hub of MAGA Washington in Trump’s second term, the DC Republicans were intent on trying. Women in business casual and men in the Republican Party uniform—blue suits, white shirts, and red ties taut to the collar—drank specialty cocktails including “The Elephant in the Room” and “The Senate Majority Martini.” The bar may have been busy, but the mood was precarious. As Dua Lipa blasted from the speakers inside, a man on a smoke break out on the street took big gulps of a pint of lager and stared down at his phone. “Darline Graham just plummeted on Polymarket,” he said, exhaling from his cigarette. “I hate my fucking life right now. Everything just sucks. Jesus Christ we’re gonna lose it all.” A car drove past Butterworth’s with the windows down. A woman leaning out of an open window screamed, “Oh yeah, Democrats!”

Inside, at first, the mood was upbeat. It was early enough that the rising of the blue tide had yet to inspire fear. To an extent. A man waiting for drinks at the bar monitored the results in Florida, one of the few bright spots for Republicans. When informed that Senate candidate Ken Paxton and incumbent Governor Greg Abbott were down bad in Texas, he clutched his head dramatically. “Oh my god! I just got here. I need to go home.” He looked at his phone in anguish. Within minutes, he darted for the door. A White House staffer wearing a red hat emblazoned with “45/47” on the side and “WINNING” on the front made the rounds. “Optimistic? I was a lot more earlier,” he said. “If we lose Texas it’s a catastrophe.” Minutes later, Decision Desk called Texas for James Talarico, the first Democrat to be elected to the Senate in the Lone Star State since 1988.

As Ella Langley’s Choosin’ Texas blared through the speakers, two men at the bar lamented the cruel irony of the song playing as Ken Paxton, Talarico’s Republican challenger, saw his numbers plummet.

“I’m not trying to crash out,” said one of the men, a Republican organizer of the party. “But we nominated HITLER with DOWN SYNDROME. And guess what!? He lost! He lost! And now we lose a Supreme Court Justice. It is a fucking disaster.”