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Cleveland spent the rest of the morning with Bissell at the law firm. He also got a haircut at Barthauer’s barbershop, where he told an old friend who happened to be sitting in the chair next to his that he was confident of victory but would accept defeat if that was to be the outcome. At noon, he took lunch at the Tifft House. Word had gotten out that he was in town, and throngs were now following him everywhere. He had a cheery word for all who came to shake his hand; he could hardly take a step without running into some acquaintance from the old days.

At 6:00 p.m., Cleveland dined at the City Club with Bissell, Charles Goodyear, John Milburn, and several other dear friends. Later that evening, he went to the theater, sitting in a box at the Academy of Music for a production of the comedy fittingly titled Our Governor, starring the popular actor William J. Florence. Cleveland left before the play was over and checked into his room at the Tifft House. When he awoke the following morning, Election Day, he went to his designated polling place in the Ninth Ward to cast his ballot. There were six men ahead of him in line, and they made way for the governor to go first. When several ballots were thrust in his hand, he said good-naturedly, “A fellow can’t cast but one, you know.” Cleveland finished in time to catch the 9:00 a.m. train to Albany. Nine hours later, he was back in the Executive Mansion.

Just the menfolk were invited to join Cleveland for dinner: Lamont, Apgar, and a few other intimates. Cleveland’s two sisters, Mary and Rose, kept the Folsom ladies company. Then Cleveland and his political team gathered in a room on the second floor to await the returns. A telephone was the only direct means of communication with the outside world, but unfortunately, early in the evening, a deluge knocked out phone service. From then on it took a steady stream of messengers from the telegraph office to keep them informed of how the election was faring.

The first reports from downstate were encouraging. Mugwumps were turning out in force in prosperous Republican neighborhoods like Murray Hill and Brooklyn Heights, although Blaine was performing better than expected in the Irish slums. It was like reading tea leaves: The election could go either way. When returns from the upstate counties started drifting in, the news from Jefferson County was disappointing. “That hurts,” Cleveland said. William Sinclair laid out a buffet supper for everyone. It was going to be a long night.

In this black hole of information, Cleveland’s assistant secretary, William Gorham Rice, was sent to the offices of the Albany Argus newspaper. As Daniel Manning owned the Argus, Rice was assured full and unfettered access to the Associated Press wire services. After he’d reviewed the fragmentary election data coming into the newsroom, Rice surmised that New York was going to be a squeaker. The “drift,” as he put it, favored Cleveland, but only by a slender margin, perhaps 2,000 votes in total out of more than 1,000,000 votes cast. That was all. Everyone back at the Executive Mansion had assumed that the state would give Cleveland a large majority. The numbers startled Rice. He jotted them down and ordered a special messenger to deliver his handwritten analysis directly to Lamont.

Up in Maine, Blaine was spending election night at his mansion in Augusta, where Western Union had strung a special wire into the family library. As Blaine looked at the numbers coming in, even with twenty-five years of experience in national politics, he couldn’t tell which way the night would go. Outside, a storm was rolling in. A vast front, roaring its way east, was making this a soaking-wet Election Day from Chicago to New England. Rain was usually a bad omen for Republicans; it was asking a lot for traditionally Republican farmers to toil their way into town in a storm over muddy country roads to cast their ballots. Blaine, stressed out, had had enough and said,