As the presidential race wrapped up Wednesday afternoon, students and faculty members cheered on the winner, lamented over the loser or simply breathed a sigh of relief that the race was finally over.

The neck-and-neck election kept many on the edge of their seats until late in the night.

“It was awesome,” said Eric Faurote, senior in psychology.

Faurote said although some feared this election would have results close to the heated debate in 2000, the country’s choice was more evident this time.

“There was a chance of litigation and a protracted court battle, but the results were not nearly as close as the 2000 election, when the margin was hundreds of votes rather than hundreds of thousands of votes this time,” he said.

Dana North, freshman in LAS -open option, said she knew the outcome of the election would be clear when she woke up Wednesday.

“I heard about the news on the election [Wednesday] morning, and I didn’t think there would be uncertainty,” she said. “Both candidates seem to arouse a lot of strong feelings and I thought that would translate into a clear majority one way or the other,” she said.

She said although she expected vote counts in swing states to be close, she did not expect controversy over the final election results.

“Both candidates knew it was going to be close, and when they knew the vote count, I expected them to accept the results,” she said.

Joshua Carson, freshman in engineering, said he did not vote and was relieved the campaign is over.

“I wasn’t able to vote because we’re not allowed to switch counties on Election Day,” he said. “I wasn’t about to drive two hours to vote Libertarian.”

It was the increased quibbling between the two parties as Election Day drew nearer that irritated Carson.

“I’m glad it’s over, because both campaigns didn’t care about their own image as much as trashing the other guy,” Carson said.

North agreed the fighting and negative campaign tactics became nearly unbearable.

“I’m sick of seeing all the campaign commercials, and I’m just glad the campaign is over,” North said.

North said one of the best results of the election was the improved political involvement at Iowa State during the campaign season.

“It’s caused people to develop strong political opinions and defend them to others, and I think that’s good in the long run,” she said.