This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

They cheered when Jack, a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier, grabbed Donald Trump's stuffed-doll likeness and shook it with a lusty grunt.

Many guests wore honorary pantsuits bought in bulk from area thrift stores. Party host Monica Ferreira invited them to imagine a conversation involving a President Hillary Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Bonnie Hooper brought an umbrella. She didn't want to get glass in her hair, she said, when the glass ceiling broke.

Fast-forward an hour, and Ferreira was rushing upstairs to grab a bottle of red wine.

"I've got a crier downstairs," she said. "It's a crisis intervention."

Nearly 100 years since U.S. women gained the vote and 240 years since their nation's principles were set forth by a group known as the Founding Fathers, Tuesday's guests expected to watch Clinton become the first woman to occupy the nation's highest office — if not shattering the glass ceiling, at least drilling a small hole through its top.

It didn't happen.

This uniformly Democratic group wasn't widely representative. That the fate of Utah's electoral votes was uncertain until election night owed more to GOP candidate Donald Trump, whose stance on immigration and description of aggressive sexual behavior lost him support from traditionally Republican Mormons.

An October poll from The Salt Lake Tribune and the Hinckley Institute of Politics showed that two-thirds of the state's women voters planned to vote either for Trump or Provo-born independent Evan McMullin. Some respondents to an online survey used harsh words to describe Clinton after her nomination — an "entitled" "liar" awash in "shady dealings."

At the official GOP event Tuesday night, Trump supporter Nancy Behunin wore a T-shirt that read "Life's a bitch, don't vote for one."

"I'm not against women," she said, "but I am against her. She should be locked up."

But Ferreira's house guests were among a sizable contingent of Utah women who saw in Clinton not only a preferred candidate but also the fulfillment of a lifelong desire, a source of inspiration to younger women.

Kara Hall, a 19-year-old freshman at Westminster College, said a Trump victory would be "unimaginable horror." Fellow Westminster frosh Zoe Ferreira said she might apply to schools across the border.

Late Tuesday, two dozen people huddled around the three televisions at Ferreira's Olympus Cove house, seesawing between stunned silence and shouts of "Come on? Really?"

As an NBC anchor explained the long odds against Clinton, they drowned him with a meditative "ommm."

Hooper, 69, wore a pin from her mother's high school graduation and her father's wings from his service in World War II. She spoke of raising a "fearless" daughter, 44-year-old Kim Paulding, and granddaughter, 18-year-old Ellie Garvin.

As the map turned red, someone asked what she was thinking.

"We're on the verge of falling back 100 years," she said.

Tribune reporter Courtney Tanner contributed to this story.

mpiper@sltrib.com Twitter: @matthew_piper