Perhaps no one is watching the 2016 presidential race more closely than the nearly 100 permanent-residence staffers who work in the White House. Whomever the voters choose in November will become more than these staffers’ president—he or she will be their new boss. The butlers, maids, cooks, plumbers, engineers, and florists who work at the White House have been here before, of course—every four years, actually. Residence staffers are devoted to the institution of the presidency and stay on from one administration to another, regardless of political party. Worthington White, who was a White House usher from 1980 to 2012, tells me, “I was an independent Republicrat. I would say I voted for the president, no matter who it was.”

But they always keep one eye on the presidential election, and in hushed tones they sometimes even express opinions to each other. They watched the 2004 presidential election with great concern because they worried that John Kerry would win and that his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who was deemed “a loose cannon” in the press, would be the First Lady. “It was going to be a potential nightmare—a nightmare you have to get up with every day,” says White.

Now, they worry about serving a different potential First Family. There is chatter in the locker room where the butlers keep their tuxes and in the staff kitchen where the maids, florists, and engineers gather for lunch. Like the rest of the country, they wonder about the chances of a President Donald Trump or a President Hillary Clinton. More precisely, they worry about spouses and attendants. They would have the most interaction with Melania Trump and whomever Hillary Clinton chose as her social secretary. (Clinton’s aides say that if she wins, First Gentleman Bill Clinton will not take on all of the traditional duties of the First Lady, which include picking out floral arrangements and china; instead, Clinton will choose a very experienced social secretary to do the job.) When staffers say that a decision is coming from “the second floor,” they mean it’s coming directly from the First Lady, because the family’s private living quarters are on the second and third floors of the White House. The staff caters to their every need.

Residence staffers are government employees but they serve at the pleasure of the president and can be hired and fired at his or her discretion. Staffers say they are decidedly more concerned about a Trump victory than a Clinton win. Part of that is because they know what to expect from the Clintons, having served them for eight years (three of the six full-time butlers who worked in the residence when the Clintons were last in the White House will be the same if they return, according to one source); but former staffers and one current staffer interviewed for this article say it is also because of Trump’s rhetoric. The president and First Lady must be willing to work with the White House curators and the White House Historical Association when they decide to make changes to the mansion, and staffers worry that Trump might not relinquish that control. A former staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter (current residence staffers are not supposed to talk to reporters, and former staffers are discouraged from doing so, as well) says, “As far as I’m concerned, if asked, I would not go back to the White House for Trump, even if they tripled my old pay.” Roland Mesnier was the top pastry chef at the White House and served five presidents from President Jimmy Carter to President George W. Bush, but he says Donald Trump would be entirely different from any president he’s served. If he were still working at the White House, Mesnier says, he would be “nervous.”

The White House’s Head of Housekeeping Christine Limerick, left, with Bill outside a linen room in January 1993. Courtesy of Christine Limerick/The White House.

“If the Donald makes it to the White House I think there’s going to be a lot of changes. I think the White House as we know it and the kitchen will be totally different,” he says. Trump is known to prefer well-done steaks and fast-food hamburgers to haute cuisine, but Mesnier points out that he also has access to the finest chefs in the world and that one of his hotels is opening up around the corner from the White House, in the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue. “I would be worried for my job, that maybe my job as I know it will disappear. . . . If the pastry chef quits, with one phone call he will have five chefs from his restaurants ready to replace him.”