A middle school dance and a tailgate Inside the Warnock, Walker Senate runoff watch parties

ATLANTA - Six blocks separated the election night watch parties of U.S. Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.

The settings and the atmospheres made the venues feel far apart, though, as did a thick fog that hung low over downtown on Tuesday night, obscuring everything more than a few dozen yards away.

Warnock hosted a star-studded celebration in the basement of a landmark hotel. The Walker campaign put together a tailgate party at the College Football Hall of fame.

Here's what happened inside those rooms on election night.

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Warnock's watch party marked be celebratory mood throughout

The incumbent senator's supporters gathered in a basement ballroom at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis downtown, less than a mile from the Football Hall of Fame where Walker was rallying his fans.

About 7 p.m. guests started gathering in earnest, although even 90 minues later there was a line to get in. One attendee, Michael A. Guynn, had flown in from Los Angeles to help with the final campaign push in Gwinnett County.

“We’ve been going strong for three days," he said, while waiting in line.

Appropriately for a campaign run by a pastor, the party opened with a benediction — or rather three of them, from a Christian pastor, a Muslim imam and a Jewish rabbi. There was live music, too, including a violinist and a worship band. As the night wore on, there were brief messages from labor leaders and local elected officials, all claiming the night would be a victory well before enough results had come in to be sure.

A DJ kept an upbeat soundtrack going between performers and speakers, with such middle school dance classes as "Party in the USA," "Dancing Queen," "Happy" and "The Wobble."

About 9:30, Hollywood film director Spike Lee appeared on stage for a few minutes.

"Our ancestors are looking down upon us, and they're telling us to continue to do the right thing," he said.

The director was followed by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, but the political speeches ended there. The crowd was beginning to cheer, apparently based on news chyrons running across the massive screen playing CNN behind the podium. The dozens of reporters at the back of the ballroom scrambled to find who was going to call the race first.

Dave Wasserman, U.S. House editor of the Cook Political Reporter, called the race for Warnock around 9:30 p.m., and the White House called it half an hour later, but the major networks and the Associated Press held off.

NBC called first, around 10:30 p.m., and the other networks followed shortly. The CNN call got the biggest cheer of the night yet, with party attendees raising their phones to snap photos of the screen.

About 10:50, the campaign announced a speech was coming soon, and not long afterward Warnock himself appeared on a crowded stage, in a purple tie and navy suit, to chants of "six more years!" and "Georgia! Georgia!" It took a few moments before Warnock could settle the crowd enough to deliver his speech.

“I want to say thank you from, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and to God be the glory —” he began, before pausing for a roar of approval from the crowd, "— for the great things that God has done. And after a hard-fought campaign, or should I say campaigns, it is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: the people have spoken."

Warnock spoke for about a quarter of an hour. He recounted his parents' lives — his mother, who grew up "picking somebody elses cotton and somebody elses tobacco, but tonight she helped pick her son to be a United States Senator"; his father who worked hauling cars and as a pastor — and his own upbringing in Savannah.

“I am Georgia,” he said. “I am an example and an iteration of its history, of its pain and its promise, of the brutality and the possibility. But because this is America and because we always have a path to make our country greater against unspeakable odds, here we stand together. Thank you Georgia.”

Energy ebbs and flows with vote count at Walker party

Walker, a former standout running back at the University of Georgia, chose the College Football Hall of Fame for his watch party, a nod to his storied collegiate athletic career. Walker’s football legacy was enshrined there in 1999.

Walker’s guests along with staff and journalists piled into the building throughout the night, with the event itself being held in the Peach Bowl Field section of the Hall of Fame, a 45-yard field with indoor turf, painted to look like a football field, complete with uprights towering over the journalists, who were cordoned to the “end zone.”

The atmosphere in the room at the start of the night, around 7 p.m., was quiet but hopeful. Tables set up around the turfed room slowly filled with people as the night went on, but for all the football affectations in the room, it was far from a tailgate atmosphere.

Cash bar cocktails were served for $11. A hot bar, featuring finger foods and Chic-fil-A sandwiches, was available for guests as well.

But it wasn’t a rally. The hooping and hollering throughout the night was limited, reserved mostly for later in the evening when Walker’s vote count crept ahead of Warnock’s.

A jumbotron loomed over the stage at the front of the room, playing a livestream of Fox News’ coverage of the runoff, with a vote count ticker at the bottom of the screen. For the first hour or so, Warnock’s early lead hampered the energy in the room.

But as Georgia-born country music artist Andy Velo performed his cover of Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” around 8:40 p.m., the crowd erupted in applause, right as he hit the “Slip on down to the oasis” line.But it wasn’t just for Velo. The crowd was watching the results, displayed on a giant screen behind the singer. Walker, who had been trailing Warnock from the start of the night, finally caught up in the close race.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that’s your hard work right there,” Velo said, as he began playing again.

The timbre of the room changed entirely. What before was a fairly reserved party became energized, as Walker supporters cheered together and hugged each other.

The rest of the evening fluctuated between those two states in tandem with the results: Walker took the lead, and the crowd went wild; Warnock regained the lead, and the room hushed again.

In one of these moments, a man in a Bikers for Trump leather vest approached the media, coming up to the goal line to tell them to turn their cameras back on, as Walker was winning again.

Perhaps the biggest moment of the evening came during Walker’s concession speech, around 11 p.m. Walker thanked the crowd, who had left their standing tables to gather in front of his podium.

In front of a lighting fixture shaped like the number 34, Walker’s football number at UGA, Walker’s campaign to become a U.S. senator ended. His message was a humble and hopeful one, and he refused to make excuses for his loss.

But the message most repeated in his speech was to “never stop dreaming,” and in a decidedly unlike Donald Trump concession Walker told his supporters to “believe in our elected officials” and the U.S. Constitution and to not let "anyone divide" the country.

"But one of the things I want to tell you is you never stop dreaming. I don't want any of you to stop dreaming. I don't want any you to stop believing in America. I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the Constitution and believe in our elected officials,” Walker said. “Most of all, continue to pray for them."

Will Peebles is the City Council and County Commission reporter for Savannah Morning News, covering local Savannah and Chatham County decisions. He can be reached at wpeebles@savannahnow.com or on Twitter @willpeeblesSMN

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: An inside look at the U.S. Senate candidates' watch parties