WASHINGTON — Horns blared, fireworks exploded and shouts of joy filled the air as supporters of Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris spilled into the streets of Washington and its suburbs late Saturday morning to celebrate the breaking news that the pair had been projected to win the 2020 presidential election.

On a glorious fall day, it was news that the region, which voted overwhelmingly for Biden in the presidential contest, had been desperate to hear.

Around noon, an impromptu parade broke out on the streets of the nation’s capital to celebrate Biden’s victory. A brass band perched on the back of a truck played upbeat jazz as people spilled out of homes, shops and restaurants in downtown D.C. to join the march.

The crowd swelled quickly as the truck moved in the direction of the White House – first a dozen, then three dozen, and soon close to a hundred. A few policemen on motorcycles escorted the group as passing cars stopped to honk, their drivers cheering.

Celebrations erupted across the city. Cheers and clapping filled the air outside Eastern Market on Capitol Hill. A few blocks away near Third and Pennsylvania Avenue SE, “The Star Spangled Banner” blasted from speakers on a repeated loop.

A woman on a bicycle pedaled through the Columbia Heights neighborhood, shouting, “It’s over!”

A man in Shaw stood on the curb with a stemmed glass of red wine, raising it to passersby.

“We won!” he shouted in Spanish. “We won!”

Fireworks exploded in bursts as neighbors emerged on porches with pots and pans to bang. Some simply stood there, raising their phones as if it were proof what they were seeing was real.

“The nightmare is over,” a man called to his neighbor, ambling out of a rowhouse just before noon.

On the city’s Columbia Heights neighborhood, Black, Hispanic and White residents honked their horns and cheered. People eating outdoors at restaurants pumped their fists and yelled in response.

Residents popped bottles of champagne on their front porches while Latin music – a mainstay in the neighborhood – blared in the background.

And in the middle of the cheers, an MPD police officer drove by and raised his fist out the window.

The spontaneous celebrations in Washington mirrored others taking place in many cities and towns across America, particularly those in states such as Pennsylvania, New York, California, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Georgia that helped deliver Biden’s electoral victory.

Outside the White House on Saturday afternoon, D.C. residents made themselves heard. Cars honked nonstop as drivers stuck their head out windows and waved Biden flags. Cyclists cheered as they sailed past, lifting fists in the air. Along 15th Street, where protesters had so many times marched against the outgoing president, a young Black woman stuck her head above the sunroof of her car, yelling, “Finally!”

A Metro bus driver stopped her bus at the corner of 16th and I streets to take a video of herself dancing with the White House in the background. Cars in gridlocked traffic honked in support, and people passing by started dancing along with her.

The spontaneous celebrations around the region were not surprising given how residents had strongly supported the Biden-Harris ticket. Ninety-three percent of District voters selected Biden. He won 63 percent percent of Maryland voters and 54 percent of Virginia voters, but did better in both of those states in counties adjacent to the District.

Nowhere was the display of jubilation more apparent than near the White House as droves of Biden supporters headed there to celebrate his win and President Donald Trump’s ouster.

A bottle of champagne popped in the middle of Black Lives Matter Plaza, spraying all over the jumping, shouting crowd.

Hundreds of people had flocked to the fence around Lafayette Square to celebrate the victory announcement. They wore masks that said “Vote” and Biden-Harris 2020 shirts. Some carried signs declaring “When we count, democracy wins!”

As the champagne sprayed and “Sweet Caroline” blared, Dasia James and Thema Thomas began to dance in the middle of Black Lives Matter Plaza.

The 23-year-old graduates of Howard University were elated that their country had elected Harris, a Black woman and fellow HBCU alum, as vice president.

“This is not just Kamala’s win,” James said. “It’s a win for all Black women, especially those who fought to get voters registered in key states.”

The roommates had spent the past week glued to their television screens, ordering pizza and waiting to see if their fellow citizens were ready to put their trust in a person who looked like them.

“I didn’t think we were ready. I knew a Black woman could handle the job, but I didn’t know if the world was ready to accept it,” Thomas said.

She looked around, at the celebrating crowd still swelling in numbers and the Harris cutout that drifted above the sea of people.

“This whole week has been really anxiety-filled and this, it just feels like a nice breath of fresh air,” Thomas said. “I feel empowered again because Kamala showed that it’s possible to come from anywhere and go anywhere.”

For Whit Blount, a George Washington University student studying political science, the celebration felt personal.

He blinked briefly in disbelief as the crowd began to chant a new refrain: “Stacey Abrams! Stacey Abrams!”

He joined in, jumping and raising his fist to punctuate Abrams’s name.

Blount, who was raised in Atlanta, cast his first-ever vote for president absentee this election. He voted for Biden.

“Never in my life could I have imagined my Georgia vote would count for so much,” he said as his friends cheered. “Stacey Abrams is a hero of the revolution.”

Blount said he has barely slept since Tuesday, watching the results slowly roll in on cable news with his roommates.

“This feels like a weight has been lifted, like one giant sigh of relief,” said Henry Kuvin, 21, an international affairs major and Blount’s roommate. In his hand, he clutched an empty bottle of champagne. “I haven’t been able to comfortably wave an American flag in four years. Maybe that can change now.”

As if on cue, the crowd began to chant, “USA! USA!”

Sam Wolff, 21, of Massachusetts joined in along with his roommates.

“That felt good,” he said. “Like we have something to be proud of again.”

At 73, Carla Yates Bremer was among the oldest people who had decided to gather outside the White House on Friday. Dressed in a silk blouse, a white KN95 mask and black capri pants, she stood feet away from the black fence, watching the crowd of young revelers dance, spray champagne and cheer.

“This is a day I’ve been waiting for for four years,” she said.

As an older person, Yates Bremer said, she was aware of the possible risk of getting the coronavirus in the crowd, but pointed out that everyone around her was wearing masks.

“This is the people’s house. And now we’ve got it back,” she said.

A young man scaling a black lamppost started spraying the crowd with champagne, eliciting cheers. Yates Bremer didn’t flinch; she put her hand out to touch the droplets coming down and laughed.

In the leafy, quiet residential neighborhoods of Northwest Washington, where even the Halloween decorations featured Biden-Harris signs and “VOTE” themes, masked residents rushed to Connecticut Avenue to cheer, whoop and ring cowbells as cars and trucks drove by with signs hailing the election of the Democratic ticket.

Parents waved small American flags and held their children on their shoulders, and a recycling truck blared its horn as scores of vehicles headed south on Connecticut Avenue toward the White House.

People flocked toward the White House on foot and by car, honking their horns, sticking solidarity fists out their windows and congratulating strangers on the street. They carried Biden-Harris signs, Black Lives Matter signs, American flags – the mood one of a party inside a sigh of relief.

While the vast majority of those on the District’s streets Saturday celebrated the election news, a number expressed their displeasure with the result.

Shortly before 2 p.m., a small group of Trump supporters was marching in circles around the Capitol.

Two women from Alexandria – who would only give their first names because they said they were worried about people targeting them for their beliefs – held a large Trump banner and said they had come to protect freedom and democracy.

One, who said her name was Isabel, said she had escaped Vietnam and did not want to see communism in the United States. The other, whose first name was Ellen, said she wanted to protect religious freedom and the rights of the unborn.

“And blue lives! Blue lives matter!” they said as they passed U.S. Capitol Police officers watching the crowds. The two women met volunteering during the election but had been too scared to put out signs in their yards, they said.

Two men walking by told them to go home to their red states.

“We are home! We live here!” they objected.

“But we’re not going to let this happen,” Isabel said. “This is not Republican versus Democrat. This is the American people against the system.”

Outside of Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, where Trump visited Saturday morning, scores of Trump and Biden supporters gathered after the race was called.

The two groups were separated by a highway median and acted peacefully aside from some occasional shouting. Vehicles, including pickups and Jeeps with Trump flags, drove back and forth, horns blaring. The Biden supporters were cheering. The Trump supporters were more subdued.

According to a White House press pool report, the Trump trucks had loudspeakers blaring “media sucks,” “CNN sucks” and “the media lies about everything.”

Another Trump property, the Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, became a scene of beeping horns, middle-finger waves and many expletive-laced goodbyes.

A car drove by with a poster-sized picture of Harris waving from the roof window. A biker shouted “Merry Christmas Donald Trump!”

Two runners stopped to pose in front of the hotel for a selfie.

“For the first time in four years, I feel like I have something to look forward to,” said Hannah, the runner in a Biden-Harris mask, who declined to give her last name because she works for a member of Congress.

“We’re going all the way to 1600!” her running partner said, before the two headed for the White House.

Michelle Saksena, 36, stopped in front of the Trump hotel to take a picture of it to text to her friends. Over the photo she wrote, “Out of business.”

“I remember walking down here to protest, and there were all these militia, and I thought, I hope this is the last summer like this. And now, it is,” she said.

She had promised herself today would be the day she would take a break from CNN. Her neck was sore from all the time she’d spent looking at her phone. But she turned it on anyway and now was thinking about what it meant that a half-Indian woman, just like her, would be the second-most powerful person in America.

“I remember when I first heard about her, my dad, who is Indian, said you have to pronounce her name right!” she said. “I feel . . . I just feel safer, knowing she’s there.”

When they heard the official news, Michael Veedock, 59, and Paul Butler, 53, left their home on 16th Street NW and headed to Black Lives Matter Plaza. Butler pulled on a patriotic mask, and Veedock draped over his shoulders a large American flag – one that he said has seen a lot of history.

He bought it when Jackie Kennedy Onassis died, hung it to mourn Princess Diana and Sen. Ted Kennedy, and waved it in celebration of President Barack Obama’s groundbreaking election.

“I hate how Republicans or the right can brand themselves with the American flag,” he said. “The flag is for everyone. And this election is for everyone.”

Veedock, who has lived in D.C. for decades but is a native of Pennsylvania, said he is proud of his home state.

“I’m very proud of that state,” he said. “The last time I wasn’t.”

Veedock and Butler, his longtime partner who became a naturalized citizen before the 2016 election, said they can “feel the relief in the air.”

“We’re euphoric, we’re so excited,” Veedock said. “It’s a great relief for everyone – for the whole country.”

In Lincoln Park, the election results turned an unseasonably warm and somewhat sleepy Saturday afternoon into something electric.

“Another One Bites the Dust” blared from a speaker as cars circled the park on Capitol Hill, honking in support of Biden. A dozen people doing downward dog on their yoga mats looked up as a young man rode by on a bicycle with a “Biden 2020” sign, whooping in delight. The sound of a champagne-cork-popping capped the sudden shift in mood.

Sarah Raker poured celebratory glasses of bubbly for her and her friend, Emma Trachman. After voting for Biden on Tuesday, the 28-year-olds had felt their stomachs drop as Trump initially surged ahead. After three days glued to their television screens, they had begun to feel more hopeful on Friday as Biden moved ahead in several key undecided states. They were walking to the park on Saturday morning when a group of movers began screaming and cheering. Raker began to cry.

When the tears stopped, the friends bought a bottle of champagne at a nearby store and sat on a rainbow-colored blanket, feeling happier than they had in a long time.

“2020 has been a really dark year,” said Trachman, a medical student in northern Virginia.

“This is the lightest I’ve felt in awhile,” said Raker, who lives near the park and works in communications.

The two were thinking about going to the White House. But first, Raker said, “there will probably be more champagne.”

Raelyn Maxwells, 40, traveled to D.C. from Utah for this exact moment, to stand atop a concrete barrier draped in an American flag and feel pride in her country for one of the first times in four years.

She arrived in D.C. on Tuesday and spent the last four days at Black Lives Matter Plaza waiting to learn whether Biden would be her next president. She was in an Uber en route to the plaza Saturday morning when the alert popped up on her phone. She broke down crying, feeling the release of a sort of despair that she said took hold on Inauguration Day four years ago. She said she stuck a “You’re Fired” sign out of the car window and asked her Uber driver to honk the whole way downtown.

“It means that my fellow Americans spoke up and won’t tolerate what is happening,” she said through tears that pooled above her Black Lives Matter mask. “No more kids in cages. My Black and Brown sisters will have a voice again, and as women, [we will] be respected and our rights won’t be compromised.”

The last time she was in D.C., she was protesting Trump’s inauguration. Today, she was waving her fist in the air and repeatedly shouting, “We really did it!”

Cole Bockenfeld, 34, was among the parents who brought their children to the celebration outside the White House Saturday.

He is White. His wife is Black. He wanted their daughter, 10-year-old Aliya, to witness this – the shift in the political climate, the first time in U.S. history that a woman had been elected to the White House.

“It’s great to have that role model,” Bockenfeld said, squeezing his daughter’s shoulders and growing emotional. “You can have anything, you can do anything. It’s not a hypothetical.”

Aliya, who let out sweet-sounding cheers as those around her celebrated, said she came down because her dad really wanted her to. She is excited, she said, to see a woman in power at the White House.

“It’s like amazing that we finally got one of those people to be the vice president,” she said.

A Senate staffer, Bockenfeld said he loved living in D.C. for these moments – a front-row seat to history, he said. He was out in the streets when Obama won in 2008, he stood in the cold during the Women’s March and protested this summer in support of Black lives.

This space, he said, has belonged to the people of D.C., and for months it has been filled with anger and pain. Today, he said it’s refreshing to see it filled with joy.

“It’s definitely a huge sense of relief,” he said. “It feels like you’ve just been holding your breath for years. You just feel that kind of lifted off people.”