After wild election, Americans endure night of agony awaiting results

An unprecedented campaign season is over. Now voters board another rollercoaster - this time in their living rooms

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After months of angst and waiting, at the end of an election ride crazier than any in memory, after the assassination attempts and the bloodied ear, Joe Biden's shock departure and Kamala Harris's stunning arrival, after the childless cat ladies and the Springfield, Ohio, culinary dogs, after all the vitriol and the gathering sense of doom - at last, it was show time.

Finally, tens of millions of anxious voters were done with the wildest campaign in their lifetimes and found themselves in that next stage of exquisite suffering that is the American way of democracy: the TV election night bubble.