There were first-time voters and straight-ticket voters and some who, this go-around, switched sides. They went to the polls considering the caravan of migrants trudging across Mexico, their health insurance and their paychecks, an impotent Congress, and the nation's poisonous political culture that has divided even families and friends along party lines.
More than anything on this Election Day in America, in a midterm contest like no other before it, voters cast their ballots with one man in mind: President Donald Trump.
"Trump is terrifying and we need to make a change, so I've been encouraging my friends and family to vote," said Samantha Bohr, a 26-year-old who lives in suburban Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey. She checked the text messages on her phone as she finished voting, because her family had promised to let one another know they'd made it to the polls.
They joined millions of Americans who turned out in droves Tuesday - some lining up before the sun rose, some standing for hours or braving pouring rain or snow - to vote in an election that will determine control of Congress and render a verdict on Trump's first two years in office. The outcome could redefine the nation's political landscape for months and years to come.
Democrats need to gain 23 seats to take control of the House of Representatives and hope to ride the wave of liberal fury that organized after Trump's surprising victory in 2016.
"My loathing for him knows no bounds," said Kathleen Ross, 69, a retired professor voting in Olympia, Washington, who described herself as a lifelong progressive. She said she was confident the country eventually would reject Trumpism and the divisive governing it represents. "I tend to think the arc of the universe bends toward justice, so I don't become discouraged."
Trump has sought to counter some of that rage by stoking anger and fear in his base. In recent weeks, he's put the spotlight on a caravan of Central American migrants that he calls "an invasion" of criminals and terrorists. He ran an advertisement about immigration so racially incendiary that all three major cable news networks, including Fox News, either refused to air it or eventually decided to stop showing it.
Among some Republican voters, that message resonated.
"What's going on right now is pretty scary to me, at the border, with all those people coming, and I don't think I'm hardhearted or anything," said Patricia Maynard, 63, a retired teacher in Skowhegan, Maine.
When she voted for Trump in 2016, the blue-collar economy was her primary concern. Now, she said, immigration tops the list. She laments that Congress has so far failed to pass legislation to build the wall Trump promised along the border. So she voted for Republicans Tuesday, with hopes they would retain control and push Trump's agenda.
In Jefferson City, Missouri, Linda Rice believes there are criminals in the migrant caravan. Rice and her husband, Richard, praised Trump's time in office, particularly his focus on the economy and his work to secure the border. "I just don't think that my tax money should be taken away from me and given to a person who came across the border illegally," Richard Rice said. "Get in line. Do it correctly."
Just ahead of Election Day, Trump sent military troops to the border- a move critics say is unnecessary and a political stunt, given the migrants, many of them women and children fleeing poverty and violence, are traveling mostly on foot and remain hundreds of miles away.
For those on the other side of the political aisle, the caravan controversy singularly represents what they find unconscionable about Trump's presidency.
"He's always used the scare tactics and found an enemy to band against," said 24-year-old Enrique Padilla, of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Padilla considers his own family an example of the American dream. His father migrated from Mexico as a laborer at 18, raised his family, and now Padilla has a college degree. The president's persistent demonization of immigrants galvanized him and many of his peers to vote against Republicans, Padilla said.
In Louisville, Kentucky, Mary Cross, a 64-year-old African-American voter, said she believes Trump uses issues like immigration to distract from more important topics. "It's manufactured fear. It's uncivilized. It's just a bunch of mayhem for nothing.
There's no substance to this," said Cross, who thinks the country should be talking about the Republican-led campaign to overturn the Affordable Health Care Act that protects people with pre-existing conditions.