The Thrill, The Agony, and The Aftermath
A visual post-mortem of the end of the Presidential Election and the rise of the campaign content creator.
Days after Kamala Harris lost the election to Donald Trump, her niece, Meena Harris, shared this endearing photo of her vice-presidential aunt.
It’s unclear when the photo was taken, but the glass of white wine and the Howard University sweatshirt instead of a neutral pantsuit suggest shortly after Harris’s concession speech. Regardless, nothing like it was shared by Harris or her staff during the campaign. While these types of photos may not have changed the outcome, they could have provided a fuller, more relatable view of Harris as a candidate.
It was the first time we’d seen the Vice President since her concession speech. Not a great photo by any means, but I liked the vibe—imperfect, real. It reminded me of another post-election snapshot that went viral: Hillary Clinton walking her dog on a hiking trail, posing for a photo with a fan.
On November 10, 2016, the day after Clinton's stunning loss to Trump, Margot Gerster, hiking with her daughter, crossed paths with the Clintons unexpectedly. “I’ve been feeling so heartbroken since yesterday’s election and decided to take my girls hiking,” she wrote on Facebook, sharing a photo of herself with the one-time first lady. Like the photo of Harris, it was taken by a family member—ex-President Bill Clinton.
Even though the race was called for Trump late on election night, none of the long-standing, stereotypical scenes surfaced—no photos of candidates glued to the television waiting for results, no photos of the concession call.
Nothing like this intimate scene that Callie Shell captured on the night of the 2000 election. As conflicting results poured in, Vice President Al Gore was floored, literally. About those sandals…
The same night, David Hume Kennerly, embedded with George W. Bush, made this image of the then-Governor reviewing his victory speech—a speech he wouldn’t give for another 35 days.
The closest thing we got this election was this photo of Trump adjusting his tie before delivering his victory speech, taken by his Deputy Director of Communications, Margo Martin.
It may seem trivial, but it’s prophetic—this shift toward content creators capturing moments on the trail will define future campaigns. More on that in a sec…
So what happens when there’s a lack of photos from election night? People fill the void, repurposing old images to create false narratives. Like this one that made the rounds after the election—the internet believed this was a dejected Clinton and Harris on election night. It’s not.
Props to
, who tapped a source and discovered it was from an event with New York Governor Kathy Hochul in 2022.What else didn’t we see this year? Nothing came close to this banger from 1984 by White House photographer Mary Anne Fackelman.
Fackelman was Nancy Reagan’s photographer but was all over President Reagan thumbs-upping the room as he took Walter Mondale’s concession call on election night. Photos like these have gone the way of that sweet looking rotary phone.
Another thing we’ll never see again are contact sheets.
Thumbs-up Reagan is an easy pick, but take a closer look at frame #8. The First Lady is subtly leaning in, listening to the call. Fackelman was ON IT.
But if we’re talking concession call photos, Shell’s image of Gore rescinding his concession to W. is the undisputed GOAT. Taken amid the chaos of election night in 2000, Shell, who once dreamed of being a race car driver1, documented an unprecedented moment in American politics.
Look at all those faces. The hand over the mouth, Gore’s dangling arm, Bill Daley, Joe Lieberman, the land line. And yes, that’s Tipper Gore behind the lens on the left.
Back to election night 2024... the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. Sinna Nasseri aimed his crack-flash at the Trump die-hards in Florida for The New Yorker. Politicos Gone Wild.
FYI, that FJB necklace is going for $45.00 over at Right Side Jewelry.
And this Hawaiian Shirt featuring Evan Vucci’s post-assassination attempt photo can be yours for $31.50 over at Hardaddy.
The mood at Howard University was grim, even more so when it was announced that the Vice President wouldn’t be making a speech. Maansi Srivastava captured this beauty for The New York Times—a moment of raw, unexpected loss—that overshadowed anything that happened the next day. The flag, always.
When Harris finally took the stage the day after the election, the results were predictable. Besides some violently-strobed, dejected-crowd photos, which can only be described as cynical, this image stood out to me. On for The New Yorker, Natalie Keyssar framed something that encapsulated most of the visuals of Harris’s campaign—carefully managed and contained.
See her finger pointing in the air? The one and only, SHOOTER, David Hume Kennerly, nailed that exact same moment for Vanity Fair, but with a long lens and from the front.
“I worked the angle and photographed the ‘halo’ over her head,” Kennerly wrote on his blog. “One of the oldest tricks in the photo book! It’s the image I want to leave behind of her, a person who isn’t an angel, but one who put up a helluva good battle.”
A few days after the election, the potentially awkward tradition of the President-elect visiting the White House played out once again. It’s always been a compelling scene. On December 6, 1960, Warren Leffler photographed President Eisenhower greeting President-elect Kennedy. Hat in hand, Kennedy beamed as the homogenous, but well-dressed, press corps looked on.
Or how about this one by White House photographer Mike Geissinger, of President-elect Nixon getting the “Johnson Treatment” from L.B.J. on December 12, 1968?
The last time a former president stepped back into the White House as President-elect was Grover Cleveland in 1892. Trump’s first visit, on November 10, 2016, was documented by Pete Souza, President Obama’s photographer, who squeezed between the two Presidents and the Oval Office fireplace for this angle.
When President Obama introduced him, Souza offered a simple, “Congratulations, sir.” President-elect Trump’s response? “You’re famous.”
On November 13, 2024, Adam Schultz, President Biden’s photographer, shot this shortly after the pool spray and pray in the Oval. The formality of Schultz’s architectural composition is striking—past presidents looming above, fire blazing.
Schultz was the only photographer in the room when Susie Wiles, Trump’s pick for Chief of Staff, was seated on the couch. Wiles is making history as the first woman to hold that position—underscored by the fact she’s in a room full of men: in person, on the wall, and behind the camera.
Lastly, a fitting bookend to this meme-driven, viral content-obsessed election cycle…
Margo Martin, the President-elect’s Deputy Director of Communications I mentioned earlier, was on the plane with Trump and his entourage, en route to a UFC fight at Madison Square Garden. The photo she shared? Instantly viral and perfectly emblematic of the kind of work she’s made throughout the campaign and how it’s consumed—bypassing mainstream media, direct-to-social.
So, naturally, an X user named @boneGPT ran Martin’s photo through MidJourney, slapped on the caption “This 1721 painting by Deitz Nuützen predicted the Trump-Elon-RFK McDonalds dinner,” and voila—X gold.
Newsweek took the bait and fact-checked @boneGPT’s viral meme.
“There is no evidence of an 18th Century painter called Deitz Nuützen nor any evidence that the alleged painting existed before Monday,” Newsweek reported.
@boneGPT’s creation has been viewed tens of millions of times. “You have a split second to get your message into somebody’s brain before they move on,” he messaged me. “You want to make it important.”
Election 2000: Over/Time, Episode 1: Are We Gonna Win?, released August 3, 2018.