It was past midnight and many supporters had already been at the Democrats' election night party at Washington's Hyatt Regency Hotel for more than six hours when Nancy Pelosi finally took the stage to declare victory.
"Today is a great day for the American people. Today the American people voted for change and to take a new direction. And that is exactly what we intend to do," she declared as the crowd went wild, waving flags and hugging one another.
As U2's Beautiful Day blared and great clouds of confetti fell from the ceiling, party activists who had become so accustomed to defeat savoured the unfamiliar smell of success.
"It's 10 years, think of it. Ten years since we won a national election," one woman said.
Earlier in the evening, at the Democratic National Club near Capitol Hill, about 200 supporters sat at tables nibbling fried fish and watching the television screens nervously. The results were painfully slow arriving and for the first few hours many feared that the great Democratic wave they were hoping for would fail to materialise.
The first big cheer went up just after 9pm, when Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey defeated Rick Santorum, the third-most senior Republican in the Senate and an arch-conservative hate figure for many on the left.
Mr Santorum's concession speech a few hours later was a model of grace and generosity, as his wife and children wept beside him. But few at the Democratic club showed any sympathy.
By 10pm, many of the guests had drifted away, still unsure of the election outcome and worried that the Democrats would fall short in both the House and the Senate. Some of those who remained were starting to show the effects of the wine, beer and cocktails that were being handed out with lightning efficiency by the club staff, and one woman almost fell over as she embraced a man dressed as a donkey, the Democratic mascot.
By 11pm, it was clear that the Democrats had won the House and the mood lightened as everyone prepared to travel through driving rain to the big party at the Hyatt.
The Republicans decided against holding any central election night event, and one party source told me that they decided to spend the money instead on last-minute attack advertisements. As it turned out, Republicans had nothing at all to celebrate and the party's spokesmen cut an increasingly sorry figure as they appeared on television clutching at one straw after another until each one was snatched away.
For the Democrats, it was a night that changed everything as they came in from the cold after six years of almost continuous Republican control on all the levels of power in Washington. Ms Pelosi, the strict mother of five who bullied and cajoled her congressional team into the discipline required for victory, told party workers that their real work was just beginning.
"Today we have made history. Now let us make progress," she said.