New York City, USA – As the sun rose over the five boroughs of New York City on Tuesday morning, a certain unspoken uneasiness permeated the crisp autumn air.

New Yorkers, both supporters of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, flooded polling places early on November 5 as voters across the United States began fighting at the polls.

For some, it was a chance to dismantle the status quo. For many, it was the choice of a lifetime.

New York City is a Democratic stronghold. In 2020, he voted overwhelmingly against Trump, helping incumbent President Joe Biden win a decisive election victory.

But each of the five boroughs has its own personality, and the groups of voters that make up New York City paint a much more complicated picture of this year’s presidential race.

In the working-class neighborhood of Ridgewood, part of the westernmost borough of Queens, hairstylist Adrianne Kuss, 36, expressed anxiety about the final outcome of the election.

“I feel nervous,” Kuss told Al Jazeera moments after casting her vote for Harris on Tuesday morning. “No one should be undecided… There are too many things at stake.”

With pink hair and pink sunglasses, cargo pants and matching boots, Kuss added that the prospect of another Trump presidency scared her.

The Republican candidate has promised to be a dictator “from day one” if he is re-elected on Tuesday. Kuss also noted that Trump has made numerous anti-transgender and anti-immigrant comments.

“As a German-American, I have something I like about fascism,” Kuss explained.

“I am concerned about his racism, his misogyny. But he’s also old, senile and out of touch. He is not someone who represents New Yorkers. “I mean, honestly, he’s a silver spoon idiot.”

He noted that the events of January 6, 2021 fueled his fears. That day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election after Trump repeatedly called the results a fraud.

“I don’t want this sectarian mafia to rear its ugly head again,” Kuss explained. “That was absolutely terrifying. In 2020, when the insurrection occurred, people’s lives were literally at risk. “I don’t want to see that again.”

Queens, however, is Trump’s home district: he was born and raised in the area, and his family’s real estate business was anchored there.

The district traditionally generates a higher proportion of voters (specifically white voters) for the former president and real estate billionaire than other areas of the city.

In 2020, for example, Trump won more than 26 percent of the vote in Queens, higher than in Brooklyn, Manhattan or the Bronx, but lower than in Staten Island.

The Republican continues to have influence in areas of Queens such as Ridgewood, a blue-collar neighborhood where many Polish, German and Albanian voters live.

Retired Queens teacher Alice Kokasch, 83, is one of Trump’s supporters. Kokasch, who voted for the Republican leader in 2016 and 2020, said he had no qualms about sending Trump back to the Oval Office, despite his 34 felony convictions last May.

“He didn’t do anything that bad,” Kokasch told Al Jazeera outside Public School 88, where he taught and attended school. It had been transformed into a voting center for Tuesday’s race.

Kokasch said that whatever Trump’s personal failings, they were not a deciding factor. “He’s not perfect, but who is, right?”

Brian, a 28-year-old Latino immigrant in Queens, also voted for Trump. He was also unfazed by Trump’s scandals and criminal record: Last year, the Republican leader became the first US president to face criminal charges.

“Honestly, it doesn’t bother me,” Brian, who also declined to give his name for fear of reprisals, told Al Jazeera.

“No one is perfect and I look more towards what he can do for his country than his previous serious crime cases. I admit that that happened. And, of course, that doesn’t look good on anyone. But you know, no one is perfect.”

For Brian, a customer service worker, Trump’s economic record was a big draw at the polls.

“I think he’s the right candidate for us,” Brian said. “While he was in power, I felt the economy was going in the right direction.”

Still, Brian acknowledged that Trump might not accept the election results if Harris pulls ahead of him by a few inches in the close presidential race.

“Most likely not,” Brian said with a smile. “I know he won’t accept.”

Another voter in Queens, David, a 30-year-old construction worker with a slight European accent, also voted for Trump on Tuesday alongside his father. He declined to give his last name for fear that his political leanings could affect the family business.

Like many Trump supporters, he cited high inflation under outgoing President Joe Biden as motivation for his vote.

“The economy is going to shit,” David said. “Everything is up. Inflation is at an all-time high. I think it’s time to drain the swamp. What more can I say?

With wars ongoing in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, he also expressed fears that the United States could be drawn into a new conflict under greater Democratic leadership.

“Countless wars…” David said, stopping. “They want our troops to go out and kill while they dine somewhere in Washington, DC, eating meat for dinner.”

For him, a victory for Harris was inconceivable, and he echoed the unfounded accusations of electoral fraud that Trump has spread before Tuesday’s election, seeking to undermine a possible Democratic victory.

“There are a lot of spooky things going on,” David told Al Jazeera, citing a conspiracy theory that thousands of ballots had been hijacked from an 18-wheeler in Pennsylvania. “I don’t accept the results.”

South of Queens, in the more left-wing borough of Brooklyn, public sentiment was slightly different.

In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a woman walking her dog and carrying a yoga mat hugged a friend as they waited in line to enter a polling station on North 5th Street.

Nearby, Brooklyn artist James Kennedy, 46, wearing a hat dyed with a blue Kamala pin, posed for a selfie. He told Al Jazeera he was feeling the weight of the moment.

“(I feel) pretty nervous,” Kennedy said. “I don’t know, man. It’s hard. I just wish we could all get along again, you know? But I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but we’ll see. I just hope that positivity overcomes negativity.”

The divisive presidential cycles of the last decade had left him feeling exhausted, he explained. However, Kennedy, a longtime registered Democrat, said his choice was clear: He would vote for Harris. There was no way I could support Trump’s behavior and policies.

“The way this man acts is not presidential,” the artist said of Trump.

Kennedy, in particular, had been concerned about the overturning of Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that had previously protected the right to access abortion.

Trump has boasted during the election campaign that it was the justices he appointed to the court who made Roe’s demise possible. In 2022, after Roe was overturned, many states took the opportunity to implement restrictions on abortion rights, if not ban the procedure entirely.

Kennedy fears that more draconian laws could be imposed if Republicans take the White House again.

“I think that’s really what’s important right now,” he added. “But I think it’s ridiculous that we have to have (that conversation).”

Across the water, in the insular borough of Manhattan, voting sites in the Harlem neighborhood attracted dozens of primarily African-American voters.

Many were eager to vote for Vice President Harris, who would be the first Black woman elected to the White House if she won Tuesday’s race.

A voting site at EM Moore Public Housing attracted Eula Dalton, 98, a lifelong Harlem resident, who walked arm in arm with her daughter, Rose Dalton, to the polls.

“It was beautiful,” Eula Dalton said of this year’s voting process.

Both mother and daughter compared the moment to Barack Obama’s surprising presidential victory in 2008. Obama became the first non-white person to lead the country.

Rose, a court reporter, traveled from Connecticut to make sure her mother, who battles early-onset dementia, could exercise her right to vote.

“I knew I wanted to bring her,” Rose said, explaining that Eula found it difficult to vote without help. “I think she’s been inactive since Obama, because, you know, back then, she was probably 16 years younger. “She was more aware.”

But the energy on Election Day in Harlem was “awesome,” Rose said, calling it a monumental moment in American politics. She predicted Harris would win “in a landslide.”

“Wow, let’s wait until tonight,” he said. “We know it is historic. “It’s very historic.”