Students sign up for a raffle at the Institute of Politics’ election party last night in the ARCO Forum.

Munching caramel apples and swigging beer, about 400 students spent last night squeezed into the Kennedy School of Government’s ARCO Forum to watch the election results come in.

“It’s a wild and crazy place here,” said Daniel R. Glickman, director of the Institute of Politics (IOP) and the host of the IOP’s “Election Night at the Forum.”

Both Democrats and Republicans kept their eyes on CNN, projected on the Forum’s main screen, and on the local news channel NECN broadcast from the smaller televisions.

Some also skimmed through displays of news articles devoted to 10 of the key races or refreshed laptops displaying the latest information about those elections.

During the nerve-wracking hours when results were rolling in, call-ins over the speakerphone included ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin and KSG lecturer Maxine Isaacs, former Sen. David H. Pryor (D-Ark.)—the former IOP director and the father of Mark Pryor, who last night won the seat his father used to hold.

Forum Director Bill H. White, in charge of coordinating the conference calls, said former President Clinton had wanted to call, but later proved to be unavailable.

Though Democrats and Republicans were given separate rooms in which to gather, most ultimately preferred to mingle in the crowded Forum.

Announcements of results elicited a mix of cheers and boos in the main room. But in the sanctuary of their assigned rooms, partisan sentiments were more overt.

“We’re going to stop evil. Yes,” yelled Ruben Marinelarina ’03 as CNN predicted Democratic candidate Frank Lautenberg’s capture of the New Jersey senate seat.

Marinelarina appreciated the chance to “be able to inebriate myself if the Democrats lost, since this country would be going to hell in a hand basket.”

Baha Hariri, a first-year at the KSG, agreed.

“Beer’s a great idea,” Hariri said. “It eases the tension between the Democrats and Republicans.”

Beer was sold for $1 a cup and snacks including pizza, popcorn and cotton candy were free.

Though some attributed the turnout to the cheap beer and free food, Aaron D. Chadbourne ’06, who helped organize the event, said many students came to celebrate the hard work they had put in the Massachusetts and New Hampshire elections.

Glickman said he hoped the abnormally large public interest in these races would make politics more real for students.

“People have been coming up and telling me they haven’t seen anything like this at Harvard for a long time,” he said.

A new addition to the program was the “Fantasy Election” contest, in which students competed for who could pick the winners of the most key senate and governor races. The winners, one undergraduate and one KSG student, will receive a trip to Washington, D.C. and a lunch with a national political leader. They will be announced today.

While many of the students said they planned to attend the candidates’ parties in Boston, several said spending the evening in such an atmosphere of good-natured rivalry was celebration enough.

“It’s the highlight of the year for political junkies,” White said.