Election night at the Hilton hotel in New York began with campaign staff dampening expectations but ended with Donald Trump’s victory speech

Just before 3am on Wednesday at the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Donald Trump made his entrance to his victory party amid chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”. If they could have heard it in the nearby convention centre where they awaited in vain for Hillary Clinton, it might have sounded like a threat.

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Just as at his freewheeling rallies, his entrance to the crowded ballroom was heralded by the theme music of Air Force One, a Hollywood action film starring Harrison Ford as the American president. All eyes turned up to the balcony. There stood a tall figure in dark suit with white shirt, red tie and familiar shock of orange hair. But this was no movie.

This was the president-elect. Trump – who at 70 will be the oldest person ever to assume the office – clapped and raised a triumphant fist above a blue “Make America Great Again” banner. He was followed by a royal train of grinning family members, political allies and campaign aides, some scarcely able to believe what just happened. Behind them the curtains were illuminated red, white and blue.

An improbable, rollicking, at times farcical campaign that had begun with a ride down an escalator at Trump Tower in June last year – in the days when he was dismissed as a clown posing no possible threat to the republic – culminated in an exultant strut down a staircase at a nearby hotel. Trump gave the thumbs up and applauded some more as he walked on to a stage where two red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps were mounted in glass cases like religious relics.

He took the podium against a backdrop of 24 US flags plus state flags, with son Barron on his left and running mate Mike Pence on his right, as the crowd chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!”. After 17 months of bile and braggadocio in which he threatened to jail his opponent, suddenly Trump was Mr Magnanimous: “I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us – it’s about us – on our victory and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign.”

He added: “We owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely. Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division.”

It was not quite plagiarism on the scale of future first lady Melania Trump at the Republican national convention, where she copied large parts of a Michelle Obama speech, but it did bear an uncanny resemblance to Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address: “Let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”

Yet less than an hour earlier, when Clinton’s face flashed up on giant TV screens showing conservative Fox News, the guests at Trump’s victory party had erupted in loud boos, chants of “Lock her up! Lock her up!” and a hearty rendition of “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye”.

For a night, this bland high-ceilinged room in a bland corporate hotel was the centre of the political universe. A business tycoon, reality TV celebrity and architect of one of the most divisive and incendiary campaigns in memory – some compared him to Hitler or Mussolini – had become the most powerful person on the planet, his finger on the nuclear trigger.

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“First,” he said, “I want to thank my parents who I know are looking down on me right now.” His mother, Mary MacLeod, was from Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, once described by Trump as “serious Scotland”. His father, Fred Trump, the son of a German immigrant, became one of the New York’s biggest developers and landlords.

After a formative spell at military academy, Trump went the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and joined the family business, taking control of it in 1971. He has claimed his father gave him a “small loan of a million dollars” to help. The firm expanded into Manhattan, and the Trump name spread internationally, but he suffered his share of business failures, notably when four casinos went bust in Atlantic City.

In 2003 his celebrity soared with The Apprentice, in which contestants battled for a shot at a management job within his organisation and he could say with relish, “You’re fired!” His eruption on the political stage was not entirely unexpected. Once a registered Democrat and donor to the party, he entered the 2000 race as a Reform party candidate but did not last.

He also led the “birther movement” after repeatedly questioning the birthplace of Barack Obama. He finally conceded this year that the US president was born in Hawaii but offered no apology, fuelling the allegation that he had run a racially charged, white nativist campaign. He also faced a string of sexual assault allegations on his way to the White House.

Trump may have been propelled to a shocking, paradigm-shattering victory by blue-collar workers, but the guests at his election-night event were decidedly moneyed. The men were in suits and ties, the women in dresses. They began filtering in after 6pm in somewhat subdued mood; just like Brexit champion Nigel Farage on the eve of that result, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway appeared to lower expectations by complaining of a lack of support from Republican stalwarts.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Disbelief turns to jubilation at the Hilton hotel. Photograph: Christopher Lane/The Guardian

Yet what would follow would be a night of rising hope, of belief spreading around the room like a wildfire, of daring to believe that their man might just pull off the biggest upset in modern political history.

TV celebrity Omarosa Manigault, Trump’s director of African American outreach, held court with reporters, insisting that the candidate was supremely confident but that she felt “butterflies”. She mused on the circularity of having worked on The Apprentice at Trump Tower years ago and now being back there watching her mentor become “leader of the free world”.

National spokeswoman Katrina Pierson also showed up. “Are you nervous?” someone asked. Pierson replied: “Nothing to be nervous about.”

The drinks began to flow. Someone said: “We’re making America great again.” A friend replied: “Trying, trying.”

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Each time Fox News flashed up a Trump victory in a reliably red state, the guests cheered and waved signs with slogans. Each time it showed Clinton had won a Democratic stronghold, they booed. Then the Republican candidate won Ohio and North Carolina. Suddenly, what had seemed like a pipe dream felt just a little more tangible.

Jeff Sado, 58, a property broker and film producer, said: “I’m very excited. It looks good so far. You know what they say: when you win Ohio, you win the presidency. I’ve always liked Trump, and if you look at our country as a corporation, who better to run it than a businessman?”

The crowd became thicker and noisier with more “Make America Great Again” caps in evidence. Confidence surged into every corner of the room. And then there was Florida. The crowd erupted in its biggest roar of the night so far and people high-fived. It was game on.

Wearing one of those caps, Benjamin Marchi, 38, who owns a home healthcare company, said: “Driving up, we were depressed. We felt this was not going to go our way tonight. We were saying, even though he might lose, he was setting up the party to reach out for voters we haven’t reached since Ronald Reagan. But now it looks like he might win the whole thing.”

Marchi made comparison with Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. “This Brexit wave, it reaches across oceans. It really does. Never underestimate ordinary people because eventually they show up and vote.”

The excitement also infected Diana Loffredo, 32, an events planner. “It’s crazy,” she said. “This is history in the making right here. I didn’t think so before but now I really do. Amazing. I’m amazed, ecstatic. She was the favourite and now he’s turned the tables.”

Her husband, Scott Loffredo, 32, was watching the big screen when Fox News declared Wisconsin for Trump, a stunning surprise. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “It’s over! This is history!”

Asked to characterise his emotions, Loffredo replied: “It’s hard to describe a feeling. I cannot overcome the utter disbelief. It’s sheer shock. I cannot break that shell. This is insane. This is three Brexits.”

The sports event atmosphere took on a darker tone. The crowd chanted: “Lock her up! Lock her up!” Every so often the TV feed cut to Clinton’s election party where faces were disconsolate. Trump’s supporters booed and jeered without compassion.

Thomas Stewart, a member of Trump’s national security committee, said of the Democrat’s followers: “I think they were a little arrogant, a little unfriendly. There were some Clinton people on the plane today and they were taunting me because I had Trump material in my briefcase. I thought, ‘Guys, you don’t have to be rude.’”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump greets supporters at the New York Hilton Midtown. Photograph: UPI / Barcroft Images

As the momentum continued to build, Brian Lynch, 55, general manager of a country club, said: “It’s orgasmic. It’s like Brexit and, by the way, God bless London. People in London got it right. They want their country back; America wants its country back. It’s the same thing.”

By now the room was nearly full but there was long wait for further results. Some broke into a chorus or two of “God bless America”. Some, after several hours on their feet, opted to sit on the floor. The atmosphere was becoming increasingly hot and claustrophobic. The TV showed Wall Street stock prices tumbling.

Thomas Hilbert, 22, a portfolio analyst from Indianapolis, was watching his fortune diminish in real time. “I’m in biotech and it’s going to be down big tomorrow,” he said. “Everything’s going to be down. It’s definitely a price worth paying because in the long run it’s going up.”

People studied their phones for the latest vote counts in Pennsylvania. But tiredness was creeping in. One woman could be heard saying: “At 3am I’m leaving.”

But then, finally, came the announcement of a once unthinkable, perhaps unpalatable statement: Donald Trump elected US president. The crowd erupted in unbridled euphoria with high fives all round. Their “champion”, as Pence put it, made his entrance to Air Force One and departed to the sound of another golden oldie from his rallies, the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want.

The Stones have objected to his use of the track. But now Trump is about to be president of the United States, who is going to stop him?