In dozens of interviews over the final weekend of the campaign, Americans from across the political spectrum reported heading to the polls in battleground states with a sense that their nation was coming undone. While some expressed relief that the long election season was finally nearing an end, it was hard to escape the undercurrent of uneasiness about election day and what might follow afterward.

Those worries reflect the fears of a country that has undergone a tumultuous four years, transformed by a devastating pandemic that killed more than 1 million Americans, a shocking siege on the nation’s Capitol that upended the nation’s bedrock tradition of a peaceful transition of power, the fall of a nearly half-century-old federal right to abortion and a surge in prices unseen for decades. Across the country, cities have felt the strain of the migrant crisis at the southern border.

The presidential candidates themselves have framed the election as an existential battle for the nation’s character, its democracy and the safety of its residents. In their ads and at events, Democrats recount the graphic stories of women who almost died as a result of restrictive abortion bans. As they campaign, Republicans describe brutal crimes by foreign gang members in the country illegally, telling Americans they could be the next victims.

Many voters expressed concerns about post-election violence.

“I worry about violence,” said Bill Knapp, 70, a retiree from Grand Rapids, Michigan, faulting former President Donald Trump for that possibility as he mingled with other supporters of Vice-President Kamala Harris at a local Democratic campaign office on Saturday. “I’m bracing for that no matter what the outcome is.”

At an early voting site in Madison, Wisconsin, Chris Glad, 62, was suffering from election fatigue. “I’ll be so glad when it’s over – I think,” she said as she helped her mother into her car.

And as Cathy Hearn, a factory worker from Landsdale, Pennsylvania, waited for a campaign event for Trump to begin in a suburban Philadelphia parking lot, she offered a four-word prayer: “God is in control.”

The final weeks of the race have been interlaced with notes of genuine violence.

The FBI is investigating arson attacks last week of two ballot boxes, where incendiary devices marked with the message “Free Gaza” were found. Schools in Allentown, Pennsylvania, closed “out of an abundance of caution” when Trump held a rally there. In San Marcos, Texas, police investigated reports of threatening flyers attached to Harris campaign signs, signed “Trump Klan”. And in Florida, outside an early voting site, an 18-year-old man supporting Trump brandished a machete at two older women backing Harris.

By Sunday, it felt as if the entire nation was girding for impact. Of what, exactly, no one seemed quite sure.

In Omaha, Nebraska, during a church service at the Lord of Hosts, Hank Kunneman, a pastor who has been an outspoken supporter of Trump, predicted “payback time” for “a lying party” of Democrats.

In Washington, several restaurants near the White House covered their front windows with thick plywood.

And in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Vernon Battle, 67, cast his vote for Harris and said someone recently suggested that he get a gun to prepare for what might come.

The riot at the Capitol, said the gas station employee, “really just changed things”. His wife, Carolyn, added: “People aren’t what they used to be.”

Seeking parallels for this moment in American political life, historians have reached back to some of the darkest days of the nation, frequently citing the Civil War and the upheaval of the 1960s.

But even those times don’t quite share the mix of deep distrust in elections, conspiratorial thinking and vitriolic language of this campaign, said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University.

“We’re having to just trust in our legal system and say at the end of the day: It will be OK – don’t listen to all the noise, your vote counts,” he said. “Everybody is queasy and anxious and fearful about what’s happening on election night. That should not be what our country offers.”

Republicans say they are worried about instability abroad, illegal immigration and election security. Many continue to believe Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and expect a repeat. In recent weeks, the former President has been laying the groundwork to again claim that there was large-scale voter fraud if he loses. In Levittown, Pennsylvania, a line of dozens of voters waiting to register for early ballots stretched around the government services building on Friday. Melody Rose, 56, standing near the entrance, had been waiting more than seven hours to vote for Trump, just as she did in 2020 and 2016.

For her, the stakes seemed to be the very foundation of the nation itself. If Harris wins, Rose said, she worries about everything from affording a place to live to the outbreak of World War III – a global conflict Trump frequently warns is all but inevitable unless he retakes the White House.

“We’ll lose all our freedoms,” she said. “I think there will never be another election season again.”

And in a reversal of the 2020 election, some Republicans now baselessly worry that Democrats won’t accept a Trump victory.

“I don’t know how it’s going to go down” if he wins, said Sue Wirchnianski, a retiree from Horsham, Pennsylvania, who called Democrats “the party of violence”.

Democrats echo Harris and some of Trump’s former advisers and conservative critics, saying they fear the country will tip into authoritarian government should he win. They point to his threats to prosecute and imprison a wide range of people he perceives as working against him – including his political opponents, whom he calls the “enemy within,” and even election workers.

Bert VanHoek, 75, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, drew parallels between the language of today and that surrounding World War II.

“Watching any of this come back is terrifying – the fascist language,” said VanHoek, a Harris supporter who said his family experienced concentration camps. Of Trump, he added, “He’s a fascist”.

Even Democrats who still felt the joy that characterised the earliest days of Harris’ bid confessed some conflicting feelings about election day.

“I feel exhilarated,” said Mary Wardell, 35, a communications manager, before a Harris rally in East Lansing, Michigan, on Sunday. “I also feel sick to my stomach.”

The intense divisions of the campaign have extended into the most intimate reaches of American life, dividing communities, families, even marriages. In campaign ads and flyers, Harris supporters have sought to remind women that their votes are private – even from their husbands – an idea that has outraged some of Trump’s right-wing supporters.

Some are now so fearful of clashing with neighbours that they discuss the election only in whispers.

At an early voting site in Wyoming, Michigan, a city outside Grand Rapids, a 69-year-old man who would publicly identify himself only as Gary D. spoke in hushed tones when discussing his choice in the election.

“Some questions are not safe to answer,” he said, scanning around him before quietly confirming, in response to a reporter’s question, that he was indeed a Harris supporter. “Ten years ago I would say ‘yeah,’ no problem. Now, things are different now. I feel like there’s more intimidation than there used to be.”

Asked what word he would use to describe his feelings about the election, he replied: “fear”.

The only point of bipartisan agreement about the election may be the level of stress that it seems to be causing.

An annual survey conducted by the American Psychological Association found that the “future of our nation” was the most common stressor for Americans this year. More than seven in 10 adults worried the election results could lead to violence, and 56% said they believed the election could be the end of American democracy, according to the poll.

The candidates and their campaigns have done little to tamp down on the uneasiness.

Campaigning for Trump in suburban Philadelphia on Saturday, Peter Navarro, a former Trump administration official who was jailed for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol, offered an ominous prediction.

“If they can come for me, they can come for you,” he told supporters. “Who’s standing in the way? Trump.”

Four hours later and 10 miles south, Michelle Obama offered her party’s version of a dark warning to a crowd of Democrats gathered in a high school gymnasium.

“Destruction is swift and it is merciless, and no one knows where it will stop,” she said. “One day it’s coming for folks you’ve never met.”

“Then,” she continued, “it’s coming for a neighbour, a friend, a family member who’s Puerto Rican or Jewish or Palestinian but then it is coming for you.”

Yet, amid the anxiety, there are those who are optimistic about life after election day.

Representative Victoria Spartz, R-Indiana, told a gathering at Arooga’s Grille, near Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Saturday that “the fate of the Republic will be decided in the great state of Pennsylvania”. Natalie Nutt, 49, seemed to take that message to heart.

“I feel pretty nervous,” said Nutt, who runs a nonprofit education organisation.

But when pressed, she turned reflective about the nation’s future.

“This is the United States of America; there’s no better country,” she said, a relieved smile crossing her face. “I don’t think it’s the end of the world, no matter what happens.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck, Kenny Holston, Nick Hagen, Doug Mills, Credit…Todd Heisler and Erin Schaff

Photographs by: Haiyun Jiang

©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES