The residents of Capitol Hill, young and old, tried to keep Election Day at arm’s length on Halloween, hitting the red brick sidewalks in defiantly carefree costumes: Batman, Taylor Swiftokebet, aliens, orange traffic cones, farm animals — anything but politicians or presidents.

Josh Rosenfeld, a supply chain specialist dressed as a big brown horse, seemed a bit bemused at being asked how people felt about the election, but he politely tilted his muzzle and answered, “Yes, there’s a lot of anxiety here.”

Most Americans are on edge, but few have a more direct stake in the outcome of Tuesday’s election than people who live in the nation’s deep-blue capital, where nearly everyone works (or is related to someone who works) in government, politics or the staggering array of private businesses and nonprofit organizations reliant on the federal government.

Presidential elections are always a time of heightened uncertainty in Washington. Basic life decisions — changing jobs, buying a house, getting married, taking vacations — often get put on hold before an election.

ImageThe district is deeply blue, voting more than 90 percent Democratic in the two most recent presidential elections.Credit...Bonnie Cash for The New York Times

But 2024 is different. Seldom has the city faced such a stark and menacing binary. One candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, is promising a familiar, conventional brand of quadrennial change. Her opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, is vowing to exact revenge on his enemies, planning to insert himself at every level of government and promising to slash the federal payroll. Looming over it all is the threat of violence present since the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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