They wore buttons and T-shirts proclaiming "Victory 2008." They chanted their guy's name and, like the candidate they gathered to honor, projected optimism and faith.

But as Republican John McCain's election night rally wore on, organizers temporarily stopped broadcasting the returns overhead and announced few results, as if not to put a damper on the party. Those they did disclose lagged behind national projections showing Democrat Barack Obama gaining on McCain.

Even after Obama had been declared the winner in Pennsylvania and Ohio, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer walked on stage to tell the crowd about "another state in the McCain category. It's the great state of Louisiana!"

Returns unavailable to them, hundreds of supporters who gathered for the rally instead waved red pom poms and danced to Hank Williams Jr. singing, "Mac is going to survive."

After last-minute campaigning in Colorado and New Mexico, Arizona's adoptive son returned home Tuesday night to watch election returns and take to the manicured lawn of the Arizona Biltmore resort as the remarkable "comeback kid," or to concede defeat. A stage was set under towering palm trees, in the shadow of a mountain named for a fallen Army soldier.

The resort is the same place where, 28 years ago, McCain and his wife, Cindy, celebrated their wedding. And the McCain faithful who gathered in the Frank Lloyd Wright Ballroom started the night confident another celebration was in the making.

The night began appropriately enough with Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" booming from the speakers.

"I think the polls and the pundits are going to be very surprised," said Warren Watson, 68, clad in an American flag T-shirt and a Marine veteran baseball cap. His wife wore a pink tee that read, "Palin Power."