DES MOINES — Confetti, dancing and some serious celebrating marked the spirit of the Iowa Democratic Party late Tuesday night and early this morning.

Democrat supporters packed every corner of the ballroom at the Des Moines Embassy Suites. Party workers and supporters mingled as they surrounded three televisions broadcasting national election results.

While CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC projected results for the presidential race, party supporters whooped it up when early estimates showed President Bill Clinton had received 275 electoral votes by 8 p.m. The winner only needs 270.

The energy scale was tipped around 9 p.m. when ABC projected Sen. Tom Harkin would win the heavily contested race for U.S. Senate over Republican challenger Jim Ross Lightfoot.

And that’s when the confetti hit.

Young Iowans, including junior high and high school students, carried garbage bags full of white confetti. When the Harkin projection was announced, the confetti carriers went wild. As mounds of confetti littered the floor, music began to blare. The energetic atmosphere was amplified when the teen-age Democrats began to dance and sing along with “We are the Champions.”

Matt Hoctel, a high school senior from Norwalk, said he came to the victory rally for extra credit for his government class. He and his friends were at the Harkin headquarters throughout the day on Tuesday before attending the evening rally. “I also kind of wanted to see how the election was run,” Hoctel said.

Getting youth involved was a big part of Harkin’s campaign, said D’Arcy Reinhard, a senior at Valley High School. “I’m here because I worked hard for Harkin and a lot of other Democratic people,” she said.

Reinhard and other high schoolers got involved in Harkin’s campaign through “Tuesday Night Alternative,” a program geared to increase youth involvement in political campaigns.

In Tuesday Night Alternative, students went to the Harkin headquarters on Tuesday nights to make posters and participate in other campaign activities including door-knocking, registering voters and circulating absentee ballots, said B.J. Hockenberg, also a senior at Valley.

Hockenberg was at the Victory Rally because, as a Democrat, he thinks Election Day is the best day of the Harkin campaign.

As the minutes on the clock ticked away and more votes came in from the precincts, the young Democrats — including some from Iowa State — encouraged older supporters to join them on the dance floor. But many were content just to watch Dan Rather.