As Henry Shippey walked to his job at a bar in Fells Point the day after the election the fact that everyone and everything seemed the same as always came in stark contrast to what was swirling inside his head.

“I was filled with existential thoughts and dread,” the 22-year-old Bolton Hill resident said. He took Thursday off.

Shippey voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein for president knowing it wouldn’t change the ultimate outcome in Maryland, and like others who did not vote for the winner, former President Donald Trump, he said he needs “some breathing room, some time to process.”

The conventional wisdom was that the race could be extremely close, but by late Tuesday night it became clear that, while Vice President Kamala Harris won Maryland, Trump was going to reclaim the presidency that he lost in 2020.

“I’m still in a little bubble of shock,” said Katie Aiken Ritter, 68, of northern Baltimore County.

The historical fiction writer, who voted for the Democrat Harris, said she had been reassured by everything she read before the election about Trump supposedly not increasing his base of support, only to discover after it that he indeed had.

Now, as her shock bubble starts to deflate, Ritter said she’s trying to maintain some perspective.

“You don’t have a bone sticking out,” she said she tells herself during “traumatizing” times. “I’m sure the horrible is to come. He’s going to be off the chains. I almost can’t think about it.

“I’m going to spend the next four years taking care of myself and the people I love,” Ritter said. “I want to look four years into the future and think what kind of person do I want to be then.”

For James Mullen, a 61-year-old chef who lives in Charles Village, the surprise of Tuesday wasn’t that his candidate, Trump, won but that Trump’s margin of victory was larger than expected.

“The history of America is, if you raise inflation, you don’t do the second term, period,” Mullen said.

Now, the two-time Trump voter said he hopes the incoming president will help lower prices and expenses for the middle class.

Mullen said he worries about the potential for violence should people not accept the election results, pointing to attempts on Trump’s life during the campaign.

“I’m kind of concerned that over the next few months, people that can’t settle with it and accept the results, move forward with it, may become violent. It only takes one crazy person with a will and way to do that,” he said.

Trump supporters rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, seeking to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s election. Trump has been charged with election interference for trying to “exploit the violence and chaos,” one of two ongoing federal cases brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith. Now, however, Smith is trying to determine how to wind down the two cases, given the Department of Justice’s practice of not prosecuting sitting presidents.

After digesting the results for two days, Jorge Montalvo, a Harris voter, said he’s ready to support Trump.

“We have to be mature enough to not be against the winner,” said Montalvo, 75, a retired hotel banquet director who lives in Armistead Gardens in Northeast Baltimore.

“We have to be mature and support him and show him we all want America [to be] a great country,” he said.

Echoing the sentiments in Harris’ concession speech, Montalvo said the work continues to make America stronger.

“She’s going to continue working,” he said, “and I love that kind of thinking.”

Karen Ugarte of Westminster said she couldn’t vote for Harris or Trump, the former because of her support of abortion rights, and the latter for two things that she now worries about.

“I just don’t know what he’s going to do” in Ukraine, said the 66-year-old retired medical assistant, who has friends in the war-torn country. “Is he going to require that they never join NATO? Or are they going to have to give up the land Russia has taken?”

Her other concern is that Trump will pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. “He might do the same thing for himself,” Ugarte said.

In the aftermath, Harris voters are trying to determine what went wrong for their candidate. Shippey, for example, thinks it was because she played it “so safe,” not acknowledging the substantial pro-Palestinian sentiment among progressive Democrats.

Jesús Rivera, 71, is pondering how “disconnected” the Democratic Party feels from rural America, and why some Latino men went with Trump.

One of 14 siblings whose parents moved from Puerto Rico, Rivera said he’s “disappointed in his people” and “not sure what they’re thinking.”

A Guilford resident and hospital chaplain, he said he feels “complete sadness” over the election’s “red wave of victory.” Rivera said he thought this election cycle would be about the power of women, and was excited to cast votes for three minority women on his ballot, for City Council, U.S. Senate and U.S. president.

“I believe that women have a lot to say to our country,” he said, “and we’re not ready to hear you all.”

The Sun reached out Thursday to some of the voters we talked to on Election Day to find out how they felt about the outcome. Here’s what they had to say.

Taking care of business

Tory Boone had no trouble wrapping his mind around an outcome to the presidential election that shocked many.

The 50-year-old aspiring peer recovery coach in downtown Baltimore said Thursday he decided the maternal image Harris seemed to project to many voters would not fare well on the rough-and-tumble stage of world politics — and that Trump’s hard-nosed, businesslike approach promised better things.

“The thing about Trump that I like is that he’s direct,” said Boone, one of the thousands of African American men who helped the 45th president exceed the low expectations Republican candidates usually have in the traditionally Democratic demographic.

“A lot of people can’t take his directness, but he stands on what he says. There’s no apology, no taking it back; he’s going to try to live up to his word as much as possible.

For Boone, a formerly incarcerated man who is on the job market, Trump’s long business experience means it’s possible that more employment opportunities will open up for a greater range of people, and that will give entrepreneurs “a better chance to shine.”

“Let’s see employment go up. Let’s see homelessness go down. Let’s focus on the home front,” he said.

Looking forward to another chance in 2026

“I’m heartbroken, scared and really upset,” Debra Elfenbein, 63, said of her dismay watching the election results unfold Tuesday night.

The librarian and Madison Park resident who voted for Harris said she believes the current administration was unfairly blamed for the current rate of inflation.

Elfenbein was reassured, she said, that Marylanders voted “yes” on Question 1, enshrining the right to “reproductive freedom” in the state constitution — though with Trump set to take office she’s not even positive the measure would hold up in the event of a national abortion ban.

“We’ll just have to do more organizing and donating,” she said. “We’re waiting for 2026.”

The long view

Douglas Kington, 66, a small business owner and real estate broker, said Thursday he believed the country had taken a “huge step backwards” by electing Trump.

It’s moving, he said, toward the “Dark Ages,” where “racism, misogyny, cruelty, theft and just undemocratic principles were acceptable.”

But Kington remained optimistic about the future, saying that his children and their children would continue to fight to make this a “more perfect union.” In the long view, looking out 50 to 100 years forward, this is a “bump in the road,” he said.

He also expressed doubt that the incoming president would be able to make huge changes immediately. “Anyone who knows anything about large organizations knows you can’t turn them around overnight,” he said.

Missed cultural cues

Even two days after the election, Crystal Peters, 44, of Lutherville, said she’s feeling shocked.

“I usually have my finger on the pulse of what’s going on across the nation, just because I feel connected and talk to a lot of people,” said Peters, action vice president for the Maryland chapter of the National Organization for Women. “The last election was such a landslide as far as the referendum that we gave Trump the last time. For him to pop back up and do as well as he did is really shocking.”

She believes the results came down to messaging, with Republicans representing change and Democrats representing no change.

Cultural cues may have been missed, she said, such as growing rejection of diversity, equity and inclusion policies at companies.

Other signs may have been the popularity of right-wing podcasters among young men and “talking about misogyny as if it’s a joke, and normalizing that,” Peters said.

Economic future

Columbia resident Anthony Seegars said he was optimistic about the future after Trump’s win, which he stayed up all night to watch, and is happy to see the results were “decisive.”

Seegars and his wife, Stacie, both voted for the former president primarily on economic issues, as well as immigration and “having some security” with foreign policy, he said.

Before this election, the couple had last voted for Barack Obama — Anthony in 2008, and Stacie in 2012. Both said they eventually became disheartened with politics.

No more political talk

The only time Earl Rosenow has voted for anyone other than the Republican candidate for president was in 1980, when “my ex-wife talked me into voting for [Independent Party] candidate John Anderson,” he said Thursday.

But it wasn’t a slam-dunk that the 80-year-old retired commercial construction manager would choose Trump in the voting booth this year.

Trump, the Riderwood resident said, uses harsher rhetoric, and has a habit of behaving more “obnoxiously,” than he’d like, and he believes both parties have “younger candidates with fresher ideas” than the ones who faced off Tuesday.

The divisiveness of the election cycle dismayed Rosenow, who said he has banned political talk in his extended family and in his Saturday golf foursome — and his sincerest hope is that the unusual bitterness will not linger.

“Talking about politics has been a very destructive thing within families and friendships,” he says. “I’m glad the election is over.”