By Ani­ta Snow, David Gold­man and Lisa Marie Pane, The Asso­ci­at­ed Press

A smat­ter­ing of protests broke out around the coun­try Sat­ur­day after for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden won the pres­i­den­cy, but they were most­ly peace­ful after days of tense stand­offs and and armed pro­test­ers gath­er­ing night­ly out­side offices where work­ers were count­ing the votes.

In a scene that might por­tend what is to come, a group of about 50 Trump sup­port­ers and a small­er group of marchers car­ry­ing Black Lives Mat­ter flags con­verged on the Michi­gan State Capi­tol where they pushed, shoved and shout­ed at one anoth­er in a tense stand­off. But with­in moments of the race being called, a few from both sides broke into prayers and at least one pair hugged.

Ten­sions grew again when more Trump sup­port­ers arrived on the scene and BLM mem­bers retreat­ed through the grow­ing crowd.

So far, though, cel­e­bra­tions and rev­el­ry were car­ry­ing the day.

In Brook­lyn, sev­er­al hun­dred peo­ple were heard erupt­ing in cheers and danc­ing in the streets and the air was filled with honk­ing horns. There also was a bang­ing of pots and pans. One car stopped in the mid­dle of the street out­side Bar­clays Cen­ter, the dri­ver got out and jumped on the hood of his car, motion­ing for peo­ple to come in to the street; the car was soon swarmed by peo­ple cheering.

In the nation’s cap­i­tal, peo­ple streamed into Black Lives Mat­ter Plaza near the White House, wav­ing sings and tak­ing cell­phone pictures.

It was in marked con­trast to days of tur­bu­lence since the polls closed on Tues­day and sev­er­al key bat­tle­ground states — most notably, Ari­zona, Neva­da, Penn­syl­va­nia and Geor­gia — pored through thou­sands of bal­lots to deter­mine the winner.

In Den­ver, cars were honk­ing and shouts of “We did it!” were heard after Biden was pro­ject­ed to be the win­ner. A crowd of about 150 peo­ple were out Sat­ur­day — some seat­ed on the grass in front of the capi­tol, oth­ers up by the street so they can cheer with the honk­ing drivers.

Jamie List rushed down to the capi­tol after the news broke this morn­ing. “It’s inspir­ing” she said, as cars honked inces­sant­ly in sup­port of Biden’s win. “To see it be con­firmed is amazing.”

Paige Flo­res biked down with her chil­dren Sat­ur­day morn­ing as soon she heard Biden had won. “There’s just this sense of relief” she said. “I’m overwhelmed.”

But ten­sions remain high among sup­port­ers of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, who believe unsub­stan­ti­at­ed claims that fraud has denied him a sec­ond term.

“This elec­tion has not been called!” yelled Jake Angeli, a reg­u­lar at Trump ral­lies, who stood out­side a tab­u­la­tion cen­ter in Phoenix. “Don’t believe that lie! They got their hands caught in the cook­ie jar and we’re going to the Supreme Court!”

“Trump always looks like he’s going to lose. And then he wins, “ Angeli said.

In recent days, armed pro­test­ers have been seen gath­ered out­side tab­u­la­tion cen­ters, many car­ry­ing Trump flags and signs with the hash­tag #stopthesteal. The pro­test­ers with weapons have been a small minor­i­ty of the demonstrators.

In a nation increas­ing­ly inured to weapons at ral­lies — most often car­ried by right-wing demon­stra­tors, though also some­times by left-wing pro­test­ers — experts warned that the guns cre­ate a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion that could be seen as intim­i­da­tion or tip eas­i­ly into violence.

“The more we see, the more peo­ple see it as a nor­mal reac­tion — even though it’s not. There’s noth­ing nor­mal about it,” said Cyn­thia Miller-Idriss, a pro­fes­sor at Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty who stud­ies extrem­ism. “The poten­tial for vio­lence becomes normalized.”

Elec­tions offi­cials in sev­er­al states where Biden led said the anger out­side their doors made them fear for the safe­ty of their employ­ees. They were gird­ing for more unrest in the days ahead as Trump so far had refused to concede.

Those car­ry­ing weapons insist they are keep­ing the peace.

“I’m here to pro­tect a peace­ful protest,” said Kei­th Owen, who car­ried a black, semi­au­to­mat­ic assault rifle and wore a hand­gun in a hol­ster strapped to his leg. His vest held extra ammu­ni­tion. He described him­self as a vet­er­an who served in Afghanistan and now lives in Arizona.

He was among rough­ly 100 Trump sup­port­ers gath­ered for a third straight day Fri­day in front of the Phoenix elec­tions cen­ter, where hun­dreds of work­ers were pro­cess­ing and count­ing ballots.

“We just want them to know we won’t let them get away with any­thing. We want to make sure all the legal bal­lots are count­ed, and fair­ly,” said anoth­er rifle-bear­ing pro­test­er, Travis Fill­more, 34, a mil­i­tary vet­er­an from Tempe, Arizona.

“Arrest the poll work­ers!” the crowd chant­ed, demand­ing four more years in office for Trump. Sheriff’s deputies kept pro­test­ers in a “free speech” zone away from the entrance to the building.

In Detroit, dozens of Trump sup­port­ers returned to the streets Fri­day out­side the city’s con­ven­tion cen­ter, where elec­tion work­ers count­ed ballots.

“Stop the steal!” the pro­test­ers chant­ed. Some car­ried signs that read, “Make Elec­tions Fair Again” and “We Love Trump.” Police cor­doned off streets lead­ing to the build­ing and main­tained a close watch on the protest.

The coun­ty trea­sur­er in Detroit, Eric Sabree, said he had closed his office because of threats. In a state­ment, Sabree said the deci­sion was made “in the inter­est of the safe­ty of tax­pay­ers and our staff” and because of “cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion” from the sheriff’s office.

In Octo­ber, Michigan’s sec­re­tary of state tried to ban the open car­ry­ing of weapons near polling sta­tions and vote-tal­ly­ing cen­ters, but the order is tied up in court.

“Michi­gan vot­ers have the right to vote in per­son on Elec­tion Day free from threat and intim­i­da­tion,” Michi­gan Attor­ney Gen­er­al Dana Nes­sel said in a state­ment when the order was announced. “An armed pres­ence at the polls is incon­sis­tent with our notion of a free democracy.”

AP jour­nal­ists Joce­lyn Noveck in New York City and Anna Liz Nichols in Lans­ing, Mich., con­tributed to this report. Gold­man report­ed from Lans­ing, Michi­gan, and Snow con­tributed from Phoenix, Ari­zona. Staff writer Sam Tabach­nik report­ed from Denver.

Some scenes from Down here right now pic.twitter.com/HJZZ4LV4As

— Sam Tabach­nik (@sam_tabachnik) Novem­ber 7, 2020