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 Nov. 5 as voters across the United States battled it out at the polls.

For some, it was an opportunity to dismantle the status quo. For many it was the election of their lives.

New York City is a Democratic stronghold. In 2020, the country voted overwhelmingly against Trump, giving current President Joe Biden a crucial election victory.

But each of the five boroughs has its own personality, and the voter groups 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, 36-year-old hairstylist Adrianne Kuss expressed concern about the final outcome of the election.

“I feel nervous,” Kuss told Al Jazeera shortly after voting for Harris on Tuesday morning. “No one should be on the fence… There are too many things at stake.”

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

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

“As a German American, I have a thing for fascism,” Kuss explained.

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

She pointed to the events of January 6, 2021 that fueled her fears. On that day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election after Trump repeatedly called the results a fraud.

“I don’t want this cult-like gang to arise again,” Kuss explained. “That was absolutely terrifying. In 2020, when the uprising happened, people’s lives were literally at stake. I don’t want to see that anymore.”

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

Traditionally, the borough has turned out a larger share of voters — especially white voters — for the former president and real estate billionaire than other parts of the city.

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

Republicans still hold power in areas of Queens like Ridgewood, a working-class neighborhood home to many Polish, German and Albanian voters.

Retired Queens teacher Alice Kokasch, 83, is among Trump’s supporters. Kokasch, who voted for the Republican leader in 2016 and 2020, said she 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 she taught and went to school. It had been transformed into a polling place for Tuesday’s race.

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

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

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

“No one is perfect, and I look more at what he can do for his country than at his previous criminal cases. I acknowledge that that did indeed happen. And that is of course not a good look for anyone. But you know, nobody’s perfect.”

For Brian, a customer service representative, Trump’s economic record was a big draw at the ballot box.

“I believe he is the right candidate for us,” Brian said. “While he was in power, I felt like the economy was on the right track.”

Still, Brian acknowledged that Trump may not accept the election results if Harris is one step ahead of him in the tight presidential race.

“Most likely not,” Brian said, chuckling. “I know he won’t accept it.”

Another Queens voter, David, a 30-year-old construction worker with a mild European accent, also voted for Trump with his father on Tuesday. He declined to give his last name for fear that his political leanings could influence 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 pieces,” David said. “Everything is gone. Inflation is at a record high. I think it’s time to drain the swamp. What more can I say?”

With wars raging in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, he also expressed fears that the US could be drawn into a new conflict under further democratic leadership.

“Numerous wars…” said David, as he died. “They want our troops to go out there and kill while they’re dining somewhere in Washington, D.C., eating steak dinners.”

To him, a Harris victory was unthinkable — and he repeated the baseless claims of election fraud that Trump spread before Tuesday’s election in an effort to undermine a potential Democratic victory.

“There’s a lot of creepy stuff 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 somewhat different.

In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a woman walking her dog and carrying a yoga mat hugged a friend as the pair stood in line to enter a polling place on North 5th Street.

Nearby, Brooklyn artist James Kennedy, 46, wearing a tie-dye hat with a blue Kamala pin, posed for a selfie. He told Al Jazeera he felt the weight of the moment.

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

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

“The way this man is acting is just unpresidential,” the artist said of Trump.

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

Trump boasted during the campaign that it was the judges he appointed to the court who made Roe’s demise possible. In 2022, after Roe was overturned, many states took the opportunity to introduce restrictions on abortion rights — or even ban them entirely.

Kennedy fears that even more draconian laws could be imposed if Republicans retake the White House.

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

Across the water, in the island borough of Manhattan, polling stations in the Harlem neighborhood attracted dozens of mostly 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 wins Tuesday’s race.

One polling place at EM Moore Public Housing lured 98-year-old Eula Dalton, a longtime 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 stunning presidential victory in 2008. Obama became the first non-white person ever to lead the country.

Rose, a court reporter, traveled from Connecticut to ensure her mother, who is struggling with early-onset dementia, could exercise her right to vote.

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

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

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