Look, we all might need a drink or two to get through Tuesday.

Election nights are long, stressful affairs where no matter your political preferences, you’ll inevitably express at some point during the night that the country is doomed. Maybe that doesn’t sound like the ideal environment for partying and joking it up with a drinking game.

But this is GW. We don’t have a football team to tailgate. We don’t even have one classic college bar that students have been going to for generations. Election night is one of the few times that the uber-political student body has a built-in excuse to get together and has a built-in high level of anxiety that will make them want a drink. Take advantage of that situation with these election night drinking games.

Put your predictive abilities to the test

There’s been a real problem this election cycle with poll herding. No pollster wants to be too far off base of the final electoral result, so they’ve all dodged any sort of accountability and only release polls similar to other surveys already out there. Do what the pollsters refuse to and give your predictions some real stakes by attaching a drinking game to them.

For each state you correctly predict, take a shot. But for each incorrect guess, take two shots. If you’re in the mood to really overcomplicate the rules of the game, as a tribute to the Electoral College, you can even differentiate the amount someone should drink based on how “likely” the prediction was. So if someone gets a swing state wrong, they don’t need to have much more than a shot, but if your friend predicts Vice President Kamala Harris to carry Wyoming, that might be cause to finish their drink.

This game might end up with you being buzzed for days, as state calls days after election night could force you to dash to a bar at a moment’s notice. But if we get to Friday and still don’t know the winner, a perpetual buzz will be the least of your worries.

Make the winner of the drinking game “too close to call”

Election night is the one day of the year when the stars of the proverbial show are journalists. The news anchors and decision desk politicos narrate the chaos of the evening for Americans across the country, often with a series of lines that sound eerily familiar to four years prior. Some examples:

• “We won’t know the winner tonight.”
• “Too close to call”
• “This state counts their mail-in ballots after the election day vote.”
• “This precinct is now reporting…”
• “Trump is claiming there’s voter fraud.”

Create a list of such phrases with your friends, and mimic the Thunderstruck drinking game named after the AC/DC song. Each time you hear a given phrase, start chugging, and don’t stop until you hear that same phrase again. It’ll be the first time in American history someone is relieved to hear the words “too close to call” again and again.

Get engaged with local politics

There’s other races happening Tuesday beyond the presidential, and to momentarily get on a soapbox, most of those are probably gonna impact your life more than what happens nationally even though they receive much less attention. Rectify that discrepancy by giving down-ballot races the attention they deserve — via a drinking game, of course.

Every time a down-ballot seat in D.C. or wherever you’re from changes hands from one party to another, switch drinks with a friend and chug. The closeness with which you have to watch the results trickle in for various D.C. City Council seats will give you a whole new understanding of local political machinations.

Drink for the losers

Maybe the most disturbing development of Trump-era politics has been all the politicians who have refused to concede after losing an election. With the former president unlikely to admit defeat, we’re all bound to hear about failed politicos who can’t accept their losses for days on end.

To reflect the shotgun these nonconceding politicians are pointing at American democracy, every time someone refuses to concede, shotgun a beer. The experience might be miserable, but don’t give up after one beer — after all, Kari Lake still hasn’t admitted defeat, and in this game you shouldn’t either.

Remember — or forget — the good times we all had this election cycle

Who hasn’t had a great time with the 2024 presidential election cycle? It’s been dragging on more or less since November 2022 when former President Donald Trump launched his campaign. We’ve met so many characters along the way and stumbled into so many prolonged, bizarre situations that make one question the coherence of American politics and politicians. Reflect on all the good times with cocktails themed around the oh-so-long campaign.

Some of the drink ideas are so obvious they almost write themselves. Whip up a Pina Kamala as a reference to memes about Harris and coconut trees or a screwdriver as orange as Trump’s face.

But unlike with your ballot, there’s no need to let the two party system limit your choices here. In honor of failed independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s brainworm, garnish a cocktail with a gummy worm — really, one could make an entire cocktail menu just based around weird stuff Kennedy did. Or reminisce on the sole debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, where the two argued about golf, by mixing Arnold Palmers, named for the famous golfer.

For better or for worse, the 2024 election has provided a whole lot of fodder that is mildly distressing and yet at the same time amusing — a phrase that could just as well describe these sports of spirits.