After days of ago­niz­ing lim­bo over the state of the pres­i­den­tial race, all of a sud­den it came to a close Saturday.

And with it came jubi­la­tion in the streets of deep-blue Den­ver, as hun­dreds of peo­ple descend­ed on Colorado’s Capi­tol build­ing to cheer and wave signs, cry and pop cham­pagne. The out­pour­ing of joy mir­rored cel­e­bra­tions in Demo­c­ra­t­ic cities across the nation Sat­ur­day morn­ing after it was announced that for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden had won enough elec­toral votes to unseat Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

Zara Otaifah could not stop jump­ing up and down as she waved a Biden-Har­ris sign, cheer­ing as dri­vers honked their horns in cel­e­bra­tion in front of the Capitol.

Otaifah fled Iraq four years ago after ISIS killed mem­bers of her fam­i­ly because she worked with the Amer­i­cans, she said. She said she’s feared for four years that her green card would be revoked and she’d be sent back to the Mid­dle East.

“I can’t describe my emo­tions right now,” she said. “I can final­ly feel safe in this country.”

Near­by, Bill Jack­son waved signs in sup­port of Black Lives Mat­ter and “vet­er­ans and mil­i­tary fam­i­lies for Biden-Harris.”

Jackson’s been protest­ing since 1969, he said. He’s been to Stand­ing Rock and to pay respects to George Floyd’s fam­i­ly this sum­mer. Now he can bare­ly keep the tears from run­ning down his cheek.

“I didn’t think I’d get so emo­tion­al,” he said, his voice qua­ver­ing. “We need this so bad.”

The parade of cars down­town last­ed hours, with peo­ple rais­ing fists out of their win­dows and pop­ping their heads through sun­roofs to yell “We did it!” The down­town fes­tiv­i­ties came amid a back­drop of board­ed up busi­ness­es and gov­ern­ment build­ings as fears of elec­tion unrest prompt­ed proac­tive protection.

But Sat­ur­day saw lit­tle con­flict, save for some yelling between Trump and Biden sup­port­ers in front of the Capi­tol. Col­orado State Patrol and Den­ver police offi­cers clad in riot gear formed a wall between the two groups and roped off the area to pre­vent the two sides from get­ting face-to-face.

The pro-Trump con­tin­gent sport­ed large Amer­i­can flags and signs read­ing, “Stop the Steal” as they mim­ic­ked Trump’s unsub­stan­ti­at­ed claims that vot­er fraud pre­vent­ed his victory.

Jim Saun­ders came to the Capi­tol to “stand with peo­ple who want trans­paren­cy,” he said. “I’m OK with the results if they’re honest.”

Lau­ren Boe­bert, the new­ly elect­ed U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Rifle, par­rot­ed the pres­i­dent in her reac­tion Sat­ur­day, tweet­ing that “the Amer­i­can peo­ple will have the final word, not the media.”

Colorado’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers joined the cho­rus of cheer­ing Biden’s victory.

“Hap­py days are here again,” Gov. Jared Polis tweet­ed.