This year, for the fifth time, Slate staffers and contributors are revealing how they’re voting in the presidential election. This tradition of ours breaks with journalistic custom; journalists are typically reluctant to reveal their political preferences, for fear of appearing biased. But, as our founding editor Michael Kinsley pointed out when we began this practice in 2000, “an opinion is not a bias!” Our jobs as journalists require us to gather accurate facts and assess them with intellectual rigor and honesty, no matter what we believe going in; part of that work entails an effort to be aware of our own assumptions as we go. And that’s all the more reason to make you, our readers, aware of those assumptions as well.

So in that spirit, I can disclose that Clinton has won the Slate vote. We counted 59 votes for Clinton, 1 for Evan McMullin (a write-in in Ohio), and 1 for Jill Stein. It’s a result that won’t surprise followers of our Trump Apocalypse Watch, which takes as its premise the idea that the election of this particular Republican nominee would be a bad outcome for the country. It’s also in line with our vote breakdown in past years, which showed the Democratic candidate as the heavy favorite with occasional nods to third-party and GOP candidates, although this is the first year that no one cast a vote for the GOP nominee.

We also asked staffers to share their primary votes. The tally was Clinton 31, Sanders 9, and Kasich 3. Below, Slatesters explain why they’ve made their decisions.

—Julia Turner, editor in chief

L.V. Anderson, associate editor

General election: Hillary Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary, and I will vote for her on Tuesday. I would be excited to vote for Clinton even if she weren’t running against a bigoted, hateful, incompetent narcissist. Clinton isn’t perfect—no one is—but she is intelligent, experienced, pragmatic, empathetic, and inspiring. I have no doubt that she wants to make the country work better for everyone, not just the obscenely wealthy. (Whether Congress lets her get anything done is another question.)

Allison Benedikt, news director

General election: Clinton
Primary: I didn’t vote. No good excuse for this. It would have been for Hillary.

I would be voting for Hillary even if Jeb or Marco or Kasich had won and even if Jeb or Marco or Kasich were women. Meaning: I am voting for Hillary because she is the candidate running whose positions come closest to matching my own. I am also PSYCHED that she is a woman and cannot imagine a Democrat I would have voted against in a race with Trump. So I have three good reasons: I am voting for Hillary because she is not Trump, because she is a woman, and because she holds the correct position on more issues than anyone else in the race. It’s pretty simple. Also, I’m not an idiot.

Laura Bennett, senior editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I’m tired of seeing Trump, hearing Trump, thinking about Trump, fearing the bright little ping of a new New York Times news alert about sexually humiliated beauty pageant contestants every time I look at my phone, watching Slate’s traffic numbers balloon with each new vile shenanigan, accommodating myself to an emotional baseline of disgust and confusion and shame. I think Hillary will win and I cannot wait.

Chris Berube, producer of The Gist

General: N/A
Primary: N/A

As a Canadian, sadly, I do not have a vote. But I have decided to live in this country, for some forgotten reason, and its well-being is important to me. I am confident the Democrats’ early voting advantage in states like North Carolina and James Comey’s exoneration will seal this election for Clinton. However, if something goes wrong, I would like to remind liberal-minded Americans that the marriage bureau at the City Clerk’s Office in Brooklyn opens at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday and there are plenty of unmarried Canadian expatriates living here who are happy to do you a favour. You’ll love it there.

Jeffrey Bloomer, associate editor and video producer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I would like our republic to continue. I think Clinton will win, because most people also want our republic to continue. Even in Florida.

Jamelle Bouie, chief political correspondent

General election: Clinton
Primary: Bernie Sanders

By the time Washington, D.C., voted in the Democratic presidential primary, it was already over. Still, I took the time to cast a ballot for Bernie Sanders. For as much as I covered his campaign with a critical eye, it’s also true that my personal politics aren’t far from his broad vision for social democracy. The choice was straightforward.

Likewise, come Tuesday, I will cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton. Voting is a practical act, and one should vote with an eye toward consequences. A President Clinton will move the ball closer on the things I care about than the alternative. Beyond that, there’s the simple fact that Donald Trump represents a virulent and racist backlash to the past eight years of racial change and progress. He is a threat to American pluralism, which—for those of us who value that pluralism—means Clinton is the easy and obvious choice for president.

David Canfield, editorial intern, culture

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

Unlike most in my millennial circle, I’ve been a Hillary Clinton supporter since this endless election cycle began. I’m sympathetic to the view that she’s too malleable or too inside-the-bubble to champion liberal values, and I do have some substantive disagreements with her (particularly on foreign policy). But I’ve always admired her ambition, perseverance, and intellect—and I firmly believe that she will build on the positive steps that Obama has taken toward clean energy independence, LGBTQ and gender equality, and greater access to health care. My passion for her campaign has only grown since she knocked a seething, boorish Trump out at those debates and stayed committed to progressive policies even while wooing moderate conservatives to the sane side. So, yes, a vote for Clinton—which I’ve already cast—is a vote against Trump and the party that stood by him. But the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency is genuinely exciting to me, too. Maybe this is just blind optimism. But I think (hope?) she makes history.

Bill Carey, director of strategy and audience development

General election: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote

Trump has done and said so many things that make him unfit to be president that there was really only one choice, but I’m excited to vote for her Tuesday. I’m not sure if Hillary will be a good president or a mediocre one. I don’t like the idea that two families will have led the country for most of my life. I’m not expecting her to bring fundamental change to Washington or be able to heal the divides in our country. But despite her flaws, I’m proud to vote for a smart, experienced, and inspiring candidate and excited about what her election will mean for the generations that come after me.

Christina Cauterucci, staff writer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary. She’s been a brilliant leader on issues that affect women and girls around the world, she ran foreign policy circles around Sanders, she knows how to get things done through negotiation and compromise. I don’t think Sanders actually had a viable plan for any of the things he proposed he’d do, though ideologically, I’m way left of Clinton. In the general election, I voted early, in D.C., for Clinton against Donald Trump. I voted with my vagina for Clinton for all the reasons I loved her in the primary, plus the fact that I believe in freedom, democracy, and above all, equal rights and justice for Muslims, immigrants, people of color, women, and everyone else Trump has promised to terrorize with all the powers of the presidency.

Isaac Chotiner, staff writer

General election: Clinton
Primary: I missed it because of a ballot mixup.

Donald Trump is a bigger threat to the United States, and to the world, than any human being in generations. Stopping him is the most important electoral necessity in modern American history.

Tommy Craggs, politics editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Sanders

I voted early for Clinton with no illusions whatsoever that she will represent anything but a continuation of the bad parts of the Obama administration and a cessation of most of the good ones. She will drop bombs on brown people overseas and bargain off chunks of the liberal program for a couple points in the Gallup tracking poll, and she has given every indication thus far that she is a bad politician who couldn’t locate the median voter with a compass, a pair of binoculars, and Tip O’Neill as her guide. But she is infinitely better than Trump, and this is the only thing that matters.

Matthew Dessem, Brow Beat’s nights and weekends editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Sanders

I would definitely vote for Donald Trump if we were having a national election to choose someone to be forced to stand on the side of a road twirling a big sign for a hot dog stand while wearing a hot dog costume. (There are a lot of people I’d strongly support for that office.) But I think it’s very important that we keep white supremacist, misogynist, no-account hucksters like Trump far away from the office of the presidency. Our democracy can only survive if those sorts of politicians are kept where they belong: setting the national agenda from statehouses, governor’s mansions, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

Jonathan L. Fischer, senior editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Registered as an independent

I am enthusiastically—nonbegrudgingly, nonsheepishly—voting for Hillary Clinton. Do I have some to-be-sure policy concerns? Will I modulate my expectations of what her administration might achieve in the face of a sure-to-be-uncowed GOP Congress? Sure and sure—but in the meantime, Clinton has put forth the most progressive major-party presidential platform of my lifetime. Besides, none of my misgivings are worth dwelling on in the voting booth, not now, not given the prospect of a Trump presidency. I don’t want tens of millions of Americans to lose their health insurance. I don’t want to see the social safety net shredded because of the magical thinking in Trump’s insane tax plan. I can barely contemplate what it would mean to hand him the keys to America’s nuclear arsenal. I’m not sure what’s more appalling: Trump’s misogyny, racism, xenophobia, appeal to conspiracy theorists, cultivation of cynics and cronies, ill-treatment of contractors, contempt for democracy, admiration for dictators, lying, gaslighting, bullying, hypocrisy—or the fact that 45 percent of Americans aren’t appalled enough by these things to deny Trump their vote. Either way, Americans will get a president who is “divisive,” that least meaningful of political critiques. The difference is that one is divisive in part because she believes in actual ideas, and in part because the only thing a large chunk of Americans hates more than a Clinton is a powerful woman. The other is divisive because he divides—hatefully, casually, gleefully. The choice is easy.

Jeff Friedrich, associate editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote

I early-voted for Hillary. I do miss Bernie—less because of his policy agenda and more because he demonstrated some ability to inspire and mobilize voters. Without a mandate from a populist base, and given a presumably uncooperative Congress and the limits of executive action, I’m not optimistic that Clinton can deliver much change.

Michelle Goldberg, columnist

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I was ambivalent about Clinton for a long time—as I’ve written before, I hated her in 2008—and if I hadn’t thought that Bernie Sanders would lose a general election, I probably would have cast my ballot for him. In the course of this campaign, though, I’ve come to admire Clinton enormously. She ran on an unabashedly feminist and progressive platform, and stuck to it despite predictions that she’d tack to the center once the primary was over. She’s shown strength and grace in the face of misogynist attacks meant to intimidate and humiliate her. She’s indomitable; at this point I feel like I’d crawl over glass for her. I think she’ll win—if I didn’t, I’d have already sold my apartment and started searching for a functioning democracy that might take my family and me. But I fear it will be close and I am fucking terrified. If Trump were running as a third-party candidate and getting even 10 or 15 percent of the vote, I’d consider that a sign of civic rot. The fact that nearly half of American voters think this deranged women-hating fascist should be president means this country is in a lot of trouble no matter who wins.

Henry Grabar, staff writer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Sanders

I voted for Bernie in the primary. I think Hillary’s victory was all but assured at that point, if it was ever in doubt, but I think the Democratic Party ignores the left at its peril. I can’t count the reasons I am disgusted by Donald Trump (we have a page for that), but the two issues that bother me most are his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States and his promise to abandon all of America’s commitments to slowing climate change.

Jack Hamilton, music critic

General election: Clinton
Primary: Sanders

I had almost no difficulty switching my allegiance to Hillary. She is the single most qualified presidential candidate of my lifetime, and Donald Trump is the single least. She also seems like a smart, decent, and capable person, while Trump seems like a leering racist proto-fascist kleptocratic sociopath. Aside from that this was a really hard choice.

Aisha Harris, staff writer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote

This headline sums up my reasoning very nicely. And really everything written below it, too.

Keith Hernandez, president

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

The choice here—between a qualified, dedicated public servant who takes pride in her preparation and nuanced understanding of global issues and someone who once shaved Vince McMahon’s head on WWE Raw—really keeps me up at night. Luckily, I am not a moron and will be voting for the person who actually knows how to do the job. But emails, tho. Right?

Aymann Ismail, video editor and producer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Sanders

I voted Bernie Sanders in the primaries because he and I agree on most domestic issues. I wish I could vote for him on Tuesday, but I will instead be casting my ballot for Hillary Clinton. Why? I’m a first generation Muslim American and the other side of the aisle is not-so-quietly trying to figure out how to deport me.

Andrew Kahn, assistant interactives editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: I did not vote in the primary because I am a doofus.

I am voting for Hillary Clinton because she’s fine and Donald Trump—I cannot think about Donald Trump. When I think about Donald Trump, my blood rises. When I think about him becoming president, the room spins.

Fred Kaplan, Slate contributor

General Election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I voted for Hillary Clinton in the New York Democratic primary, and I will vote for her Tuesday, both times with gusto. I’m not nuts about Hillary; for one thing, she’s a bit too hawkish for my taste. But she has a genuine conscience, a decent sensibility, a persistent intelligence; I agree with her on almost all issues, and I admire her political cunning (a plus for a president, in my book). I’d vote for her against any of the Republicans who ran for president this year, but against Donald Trump—the most appalling, ignorant, and dangerous major-party candidate in, possibly, all of American history—I regard a vote for her as a moral imperative.

Joshua Keating, staff writer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote. In my defense, I was traveling and it was all wrapped up by the time it got to D.C. Would have been Clinton.

Like it or not, executive power over foreign policy has only increased in recent years, making the stakes of this election very high, even with two “normal” candidates. As it is, I have hard time imagining anyone short of David Duke or Alex Jones that I would trust less to safeguard the country’s security and interests than Donald Trump, and both those guys are supporting him. I do have some concerns about Hillary Clinton’s foreign-policy views, both areas where she’ll preserve the status quo and those where she differs from the Obama administration, but she’s eminently qualified for the job and it’s not really much of a choice.

Dan Kois, culture editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I’m excited about voting for our first female president, and also excited to vote for Not Donald Trump.

Rachael Larimore, senior editor

General election: Evan McMullin
Primary: John Kasich

There has been precious little to cheer this election season for those of us horrified by Donald Trump’s hijacking of the Republican Party. There was Mitt Romney’s speech in March, in which he spoke optimistically about America’s future while warning against Trump. My home state of Ohio took a stand in the primaries and voted for Gov. John Kasich (my choice) instead of Trump. And we had Ted Cruz’s principled convention speech in which he did not endorse Trump (though he later caved). One small consolation with larger implications has been the emergence of Evan McMullin, a young, principled conservative who, with a little more experience and exposure, could appeal to a wide range of factions in the fractured GOP. While suggestions that he could win Utah and throw the Electoral College into disarray are fantastical daydreams (oh, but tempting fantastical daydreams in this real-life nightmare), he does at least provide conservatives with a protest vote we can feel good about. And something to hold us over through four years of a terrifying Hillary Clinton presidency. Because barring any more late surprises, the woman whom P.J. O’Rourke called “the second-worst thing that could happen to America” is going to win. I suspect the popular vote will be closer than makes anyone comfortable, and I hope that it’s close enough to give pause to Hillary’s supporters, to remind them they elected not a heroic woman who will stand as a beacon of light and hope for future generations but a corrupt, contemptuous, and divisive politician who insisted it was her turn.

Josh Levin, executive editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

Donald Trump foments hatred of people of color, immigrants, Muslims, and women (among others). He would make life worse for millions upon millions of Americans. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, is not one of the worst people in American history. She is a serious adult who knows things about policy and does not want the United States to descend into an undemocratic, misogynistic, racist kleptocracy. I also support that.

Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor

General election: N/A
Primary: N/A

I am Canadian and I do not vote, although 15 years ago I married a man (happily American) who sees eye-to-eye with me on what we value as parents and spouses. We wrote this together: He and I are joyfully and collectively voting for Hillary Clinton, for reasons that almost feel absurd to repeat, i.e., it’s about damn time we have a woman; she is totally experienced; and we have, on sober reflection, general opposition to the world blowing up. There can be no America as we’ve come to know it if Trump were elected. His narcissism knows no bounds and recognizes no value in anything that isn’t good for him alone. This is not the America we love and work for.

Lowen Liu, managing editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

It remains shocking to me that people still suffer from the mass delusion of voting for change, especially when change is frequently another word for brutally enforced regression. Actual change does a not-bad job of happening on its own, and is moving at a not-bad pace as is. What I want to vote for is a non-change-agent. Someone who can serve as capable steward, who will stand athwart history and say, “I can go with this.” I voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary, and will vote for her in the general. It is those who have the most to fear from change who will elect her.

J. Bryan Lowder, associate editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

As a queer person who thinks of my well-being as being tied to the well-being of other marginalized groups in America, I don’t have much of a choice. Trump’s misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and outright contempt for true American values like inclusion, civility, and paying your fair share make him unconscionable in my book. Clinton, while certainly imperfect, brings the experience, intelligence, sensitivity—and, most important, a willingness to learn—that a president must possess. I supported her in the primary because she is most qualified for the job, and I’m excited to see her get to work.

Evan Mackinder, audience engagement editor:

General election: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote

Donald J. Trump plainly represents an existential threat to our democracy. But pretend for a moment that the GOP didn’t nominate a fascist, fraudulent, sexual predator for president: I’m still with her. Hillary Clinton is a whip-smart civil servant with decades of experience that ranges from child care advocate to U.S. senator and secretary of state. She’s also proved her mettle and fortitude during a horrifying campaign, all while carrying herself with grace. I’ll proudly cast a vote for the first female president and the best candidate to lead us through these perilous, Trumpish times.

Marissa Martinelli, editorial assistant

General election: Clinton
Primary: I was living abroad and missed the registration deadline (oops).

This is the first presidential election I’m voting in, and I feel like it should be inspiring or exciting to cast a ballot for our country’s first female president. Instead, I’m completely exhausted. This is no longer a matter of ideology: One candidate is competent, clear-headed, and more qualified than possibly any other person who has ever run for president. The other candidate is a demagogue with zero experience. I understand why people who agree with Trump’s ideology are voting for him. But how any ordinary, self-respecting Republican can do so just to keep Clinton out of the White House is unfathomable.

Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slatest blogger

General election: Clinton
Primary: Sanders

I thought some of Sanders’ policy ideas were impractical but felt it was worthwhile in a political world suffused with cronyism and dishonesty to support someone who conducts himself in such a relatively independent and honest way. I will vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday; I don’t think she’s helping on the honesty or cronyism fronts, but I think she will sincerely work to make our country fairer and more humane and is much less likely than her opponent to do something drastically destructive.

Susan Matthews, senior editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

Clinton is one of the most qualified presidential candidates perhaps ever and I’m thrilled to cast my ballot for her on Tuesday. This campaign has also been a near-daily reminder of the subtle sexism that still pervades our society. I shudder to think how hard she might have had it if the Republicans had put up a competent candidate. Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how Tuesday goes, I guess—they didn’t.

Seth Maxon, home page editor, nights and weekends

General election: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote

Some argue Trump would not be able to enact his terrifying promises—to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, to ban Muslims from entering the United States and surveil those already living here, to impose a national form of stop-and-frisk on the country’s black and Latino urban neighborhoods, to embark on deadly bombing campaigns overseas. They say he has no real intention of doing this, that it is rhetoric to rile his supporters, and that he is too stupid to accomplish anything, anyway. This view is a chimera. He is a buffoon, yes. He is not intelligent. He has come this far by inheriting a fortune and hiring people willing to help him swindle his way into keeping it, and he has come this close to the presidency by stoking the most emotional fears and despairs of white men, through appeals to their desire to live out a fantasy of machismo and wealth unencumbered from responsibility, by falsely promising dignity to downtrodden communities through the oppression of others. But his craven stupidity, his inability to distinguish reality from fiction, and his ignorance about domestic and foreign affairs did not make him a pliable puppet for Republican power players, sycophants, and quislings who fantasized about controlling him. They have tried all year and failed. Instead, his ignorance and stupidity make him less susceptible to such control, more likely to act rashly, and more dangerous—not less so—than a smarter person with similar views. He would be a child brandishing the world’s largest machine gun. Compared with these threats, that he also happens to be a sexual predator who has probably assaulted at least a dozen women almost seems like a grotesque footnote. It’s the responsibility of all thinking Americans to stop him from attaining the frightening power of the presidency, and the only way to do that is to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Abby McIntyre, copy editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

As a progressive, I supported the candidacy of Bernie Sanders to the extent that it helped push Clinton and the Democratic Party to the left on issues that matter to me, such as criminal justice reform, affordable higher education, universal health care, and the minimum wage. But when the D.C. primary finally rolled around on June 14, I was ready to get behind our nominee. I do have some reservations about Clinton, but, still, she’s insanely qualified to be president and clearly our best choice. Even if her opponent weren’t a selfish, racist, temperamental, xenophobic, unqualified, misogynistic, entitled, sexually predatory bully, I’d be proud to cast my vote for Hillary. It’s past time to have a woman in the White House. And yes, if Clinton wins, I will likely cry for my fellow Seven Sister on Election Day and again as I freeze my butt off on the National Mall for the inauguration.

Ayana Morali, executive producer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Wasn’t able to vote

I didn’t vote in the primary because I was one of the New Yorkers disenfranchised that day. However, I had planned to vote for Bernie Sanders. I agree with a lot of his policies and while I don’t actually think he’d be a good president, I think he played an important role in pushing Hillary and the party to the left. For the general election, as a Brooklynite who has spent more than 10 years commuting into Manhattan daily, I won’t deny the general appeal of having trains run on time. However, I think history has proved there are many downsides to a fascist and xenophobic approach to governing. As a member of the human race, that’s not the direction I’d like the world’s superpower to head in.

Jim Newell, politics writer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote

I will vote for Hillary Clinton in Washington, D.C. I neither voted nor caucused in D.C.’s nominating contests. I’m voting for Clinton because she’s fine, and Donald Trump is neither prepared nor temperamentally suited to serve as president. The rest is noise.

Leon Neyfakh, staff writer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote

I didn’t vote in the Democratic primary in New York because I was visiting my family in Illinois for my birthday at the time. I should have probably planned ahead and found a way to vote but it seemed so inevitable Clinton was going to win the state that I figured, correctly, that it wouldn’t matter. I am looking forward to voting for Clinton on Tuesday, not just because I think she’s the superior candidate, but because I suspect the act of pulling the lever for her will magically cause me to identify with her more viscerally than I have throughout this campaign. It seems so obvious to me that Clinton would be exceptionally good at performing the duties of the presidency, but for some reason—I guess because I don’t really want to “hang out” with her?—I have felt somewhat separate from her candidacy. This is what people mean when they say she’s a bad politician, I guess. Really though, it obviously doesn’t matter that Clinton is hard to identify with or relate to, and not just because she’s up against a world-historical threat to the country. I was raised to recoil at belligerent opportunists like Trump, and everything I’ve learned as an adult convinces me that millions would suffer if he were to seize political power.

Osita Nwanevu, editorial assistant

General election: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote

The Democratic primaries were difficult for me. I liked Sanders as an individual more than Clinton. I felt I was closer to Clinton on policy than Sanders. I didn’t vote and I’m now registered as an independent. With another chance, I would have cast an easy vote for Sanders. Progressives and the left have an energy and an ambition that center-left liberals lack—partially because their distance from power allows them to traffic in abstractions, but also because the Democratic Party is dominated at this point by a complacency embodied by Clinton and the careerists she surrounds herself with. The Democrats will respond that Republicans have made doing anything truly ambitious impossible. I agree. This is what makes Clinton’s apparent willingness to retry Obama’s woeful political strategy—negotiating, disappointedly tut-tutting them, and then doing some executive half-measures—unacceptable. I used to very faintly believe that Republican politicians couldn’t possibly be as cartoonishly hateful and malicious as they seemed. Trump has been clarifying. The contemporary Republican Party is the most malign political institution we’ve seen in America since the Confederacy. It is cancerous. We need a president willing to say so and a president willing to lead a real, pitched ideological and political fight for the future of this country against them. Clinton is obviously not that person. Just as obviously, she has my vote.

Helaine Olen, columnist

General election: Clinton
Primary: Sanders

Does the first female president really need to be the wife of a former president? What kind of message does that send? Hey little girl, you too can grow up to be president—provided you marry the right guy first! Permit me my discomfort. Also: Between all the Bushes and the Clintons, our presidency is starting to get a bit of a banana republic dynastic vibe going. And, finally, yes, I’m concerned about Hillary Clinton’s long-standing closeness with Wall Street. As a result of all this, my original plan was a write-in for Elizabeth Warren. I live in New York. If someone placed my poodle on the Democratic Party line, she’d likely take the state. I can vote symbolically in presidential elections and not worry about the consequences—or so I thought. But now the polls are tightening again. And even if Clinton wins, which I still think she will, it seems likely many Republicans are going to claim she doesn’t have a mandate, it was all because many voters couldn’t bring themselves to sign off on the crooked, lying, temperamentally unsuited, ignorant, manifestly unqualified, grotesque tabloid id that’s Donald Trump. So of course I am now voting for Hillary Clinton. I want a Democrat to win a majority of the popular vote and by as much as possible.

Rebecca Onion, staff writer

General election: Clinton
Primary: I would have voted for Hillary in the primary, but, embarrassingly, I went to the wrong polling station and couldn’t get to the correct one before polls closed.

Why? Because I want to have a president who has worked hard on, and cares about, issues that matter to me, like health care and support for families with children. Because I want us to finally have a woman in charge; it’s embarrassing that it’s taken this long. And because ... I’m not a maniac who thinks that anarchy might be better than the rule of law? Oh, that.

Will Oremus, senior technology writer

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

In this week’s Slate cover story, Tommy Craggs argued persuasively that this election was about the issues—among them, misogyny, racism, and xenophobia, which he called “the most important issues of our time.” They’re up there, I agree, and Trump is pushing on the wrong end of all of them. But I can think of one other issue that might define our age in retrospect: climate change. On social issues, Trump and his conservative backers are mounting a reckless last stand against what I believe is an overwhelming array of forces in favor of long-term progress. But on the climate, time and inertia are on his side. To the extent he would set back national and global efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions—and he has made it clear that he would—the damage would be permanent. I have mixed feelings about Clinton as a candidate, but none about Trump. His election could be a calamity not only for our generation, but for countless generations to follow.

Willa Paskin, TV critic

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

Not only do I find Trump terrifying, unfit, bigoted, and grotesque, I actually like Hillary, as in, find her likeable and would happily share a glass of baby blood with her while cackling about where Vince Foster’s body is buried and the unhappy accident soon to befall Anthony Weiner. That said, I am a devoted magical thinker when it comes to predicting the future and fervently believe that the one thing that is sure not to happen is the thing you have imagined in great detail and stated out loud. So I refuse to say in public, let alone in writing, that she will win on Tuesday or by what margin—just know my fingers and toes and eyes and arms are crossed.

Mike Pesca, host of The Gist

General election: Clinton
Primary: Registered as an Independent

I would have voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary if I were a member of a political party, and I will vote for Hillary Clinton in the general because she favors policy positions that will benefit America more than any other candidate who ran this year. This, plus the ability to implement those policies, should be the reason why every candidate gets anyone’s vote, by the way. Hillary Clinton is for regulation of business but not “breaking up the banks,” which is prudent; she is for a progressive tax code but knows that budget deficits should be kept under control; and most importantly, if another financial crisis hits, she will pick stimulus over austerity as the path out. I predict her presidency will be one of modest but demonstrable achievement but little acknowledgment that the achievement actually happened. Or, hers can be the Ghostbusters reboot presidency unfairly criticized by sexists, vigorously defended by mainstream critics and yet, when you get down to it, a pale imitation of the original. Let’s hope not.

Dawnthea Price, copy editor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Kasich

I voted for John Kasich in Virginia’s Republican primary because he seemed like a very “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” kind of candidate. That predictability was what I wanted from this cycle. Hah. Now, I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton. She’s the person I’m most confident in with regard to ability to lead. She was not my first, second, or third choice.

Gabriel Roth, senior editor and Slate Plus director

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary. The Clinton/Sanders question has been pretty thoroughly hashed out and I don’t have anything new to add: electability, gender, etc. In the general election I will vote for Hillary Clinton again, for reasons that again will not surprise you. It’s very important that Donald Trump not be president.

William Saletan, national correspondent

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

After many years as an independent, I gave in to my one-party state and registered as a Democrat. So I voted for Clinton in the primary and will vote for her again in the general. I like her moderation and her practicality. But I would vote for her anyway, because Trump is by far the most dangerous major-party nominee in my lifetime. If Richard Nixon came back and were eligible for another term, I would vote for him against Trump.

Laura Sim, Slate Plus intern

General: Clinton
Primary: Sanders

Clinton’s plans to make college affordable will improve Americans’ lives far more than the shameful, for-profit Trump University ever will. I’d rather have a champion of women’s rights who’s fighting for a truly diverse and thriving America, rather than a racist, xenophobic misogynist leading our country. This is one nasty woman I’m happy to get behind.

Jeremy Stahl, senior editor

General: Clinton
Primary: Didn’t vote

I support Hillary Clinton. That this is the only reasonable choice this election seems self-evident, but apparently it is not.

Mark Joseph Stern, writer

General: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

Hillary Clinton is not perfect. She is also not a proto-fascist. Donald Trump is a proto-fascist, and his supporters have made me feel unsafe to be a Jew in America for the first time in my life. Voting for Clinton is the best way to stop Trump. Therefore, she has my vote.

Dana Stevens, movie critic

General: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary in New York, when most of my friends were rallying behind Obama, then an exciting but relatively untested force on the national political scene. I remember clearly the three-part rationale behind my vote. Having served two terms as a senator here, Hillary was highly likely to win the state anyway (as she ended up doing by a robust margin), so a vote for Obama would mainly register as a vote of no confidence against her. And the fact was, I had more confidence in Hillary. Even if our political views haven’t always aligned, I’ve found her an appealing figure ever since her cookie-baking wisecrack in Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential race. As gifted a candidate as Obama was, I thought Hillary’s experience in executive-branch politics gave her a better chance of beating her opponent in the general. The third reason I pulled the lever for Clinton back then was a purely sentimental one: I wanted the chance to vote for a woman in a presidential election in my lifetime, and I couldn’t be sure I would get that chance again. Eight years later, I find myself increasingly annoyed by this much-bruited-about argument that the only candidate Hillary would stand a chance of beating is one as unprecedentedly awful as Donald Trump, that she’s somehow lucky to be running against him. In fact, as has become increasingly clear over the course of this race, it’s Democrats who are lucky to have her as their candidate. If it’s true that a politician demonstrates over the course of his or her campaign how he or she would govern, the kind of leader Hillary has proven herself to since this whole grotesque circus began approximately a millennium ago is looking pretty good to me: intelligent, informed, resilient, hardworking, and able to keep her cool and even be gracious under the most absurdly trying, and too often abjectly demeaning, conditions. I can’t vouch for what kind of president Hillary Clinton will make once in office (“will,” not “might,” oh please oh please God please), but to pretend she hasn’t demonstrated she’s qualified to occupy that office is disingenuous, dumb, and under the circumstances, dangerous.

Seth Stevenson, Slate contributor

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I voted for Hillary Clinton in the New York primary because I admire her intelligence, her pragmatism, and her unflappable demeanor. I will happily vote for her again on Tuesday. The only thing that’s changed since April is that I like her opponent a whole lot less this time.

I wouldn’t trust Donald Trump to chaperone an eighth-grade field trip. I wouldn’t trust him to pay back $20 I lent him. I certainly don’t trust him—and his inhuman lack of empathy and his tinderbox temperament—to be the leader of our country and its face to the world. He would diminish us in every manner possible.

John Swansburg, deputy editor

General: Clinton
Primary: Kasich

In 2008, I felt the Democratic Party had two strong candidates in Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, so before the New York primary I registered as a Republican simply for the joy of voting against Rudolph Giuliani. (I voted for John McCain.) Having lived my entire voting life in solidly blue states, this vote against Giuliani remains my greatest contribution to American democracy, one that has been further burnished by Giuliani’s horrid role in the 2016 campaign as Donald Trump’s hype man. I never bothered switching my party affiliation after 2008, mainly because I enjoy the quizzical looks I get from Park Slope poll workers when I tell them I’m a Republican. This year, however, my quadrennial meddling in the affairs of the GOP left me in a bit of a pickle when primary day came around. The New York ballot I was issued did not allow for a write-in candidate, so I was forced to hold my nose and cast a vote for John Kasich, a man I hold in no regard but who felt like the closest thing to a Donald Trump protest vote. (It was between Kasich and a meaningless vote for a zombie Jeb Bush.) In the general election, I will vote for Hillary Clinton, because I would like American democracy to persist and because I am eager to watch her acceptance speech with my 2-year-old daughter.

June Thomas, culture critic and Outward editor

General: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

There’s nothing begrudging about my support—I’m excited to get a chance to vote for the first female president, and I appreciate Clinton’s record of public service. Let’s face it, though, I’m a woman, a lesbian, and an immigrant—how could I possibly vote for her opponent? I don’t want to make a prediction about the outcome, because this time around I can’t understand why any decent person could support the GOP candidate, and I hate to think that some of my chosen compatriots are indecent.

Julia Turner, editor in chief

General: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I’m voting for Hillary Clinton, and I voted for her in the primary. I was never a true booster: I thought it was foolish of the Democratic Party to attempt to anoint someone so widely despised, and I found Hillary’s primary persona to be too constrained, short on ideas and woefully careful. But watching her slog through this tough and dispiriting race, I’ve been increasingly impressed. The woman is indefatigable, unflappable, and smart, and she’s built a tactically brilliant campaign. I think she’ll do good things.

Evan Urquhart, Slate contributor

General: Jill Stein
Primary: Didn’t vote

I’ve taken more heat for being a minor party voter this year than in any year previously, but I’ll be voting for Jill Stein again anyway. The issues I care most about are reducing militarism, ending corporate influence over our politics, and protecting workers. These are issues on which the two major parties do not significantly differ, so every four years I lend what small support I can to candidates who criticize this major party consensus. Minor party candidates are invariably portrayed as kooks and imbeciles, and this year has been particularly vicious, something which I find ironic in light of the fact that a truly kooky imbecile was nominated by the Republicans. Jill Stein’s not a perfect candidate by any means, but I think she’d shake up our political landscape in a healthy way if elected. I don’t know who will win, but if Trump does, I plan on loudly blaming Hillary voters for spoiling Stein’s chances. Hopefully that will confuse the angry mob just long enough for me to escape from it.

Josh Voorhees, senior writer

General: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

Nine months ago, I backed Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucus. I can’t remember ever feeling more politically conflicted in my life than I did standing in an overcrowded public library deciding between her and Bernie Sanders. Ultimately, though, I was convinced Clinton represented the better chance of preserving the very real progressive gains made during the past eight years. (Also: It is about freaking time this country had a woman as commander in chief.)

Last week, I cast my general election ballot early for Clinton. I felt no conflict. None. Donald Trump ran a hate-filled, policy-free, reality-denying sham of a campaign that played on white America’s fears of the other. Clinton is not the perfect candidate—there are no perfect candidates—but she is smart, capable, and qualified. She is also not Donald Trump. I trust my fellow Americans to realize that.

Katy Waldman, words correspondent

General: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I am voting for Hillary because I think she is experienced, intelligent, compassionate, and knowledgeable, and because I believe in her policies. Also she is running against the Antichrist.

Jacob Weisberg, chairman of The Slate Group

General election: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

In normal elections, two major-party candidates contend for the presidency. This year, we have one candidate running for president and one candidate running for dictator. I think there’s a decent chance that American democracy would survive assault by President Trump. It would be utterly insane to want to test the proposition. I’ll vote against this moral canker with a feeling of disgust that he has gotten so far and a belief that everything I care about is at stake. I’ll vote for Hillary Clinton, as I voted for her in the primaries, with mild enthusiasm. While far from perfect, she is capable, qualified, and committed to the kind of pragmatic liberalism I believe in. I am also happy to finally elect a woman as president—it’s about time.

Jordan Weissmann, senior business and economics correspondent

General: Clinton
Primary: Missed it. I was disenfranchised by New York’s ridiculous requirement that you have to be registered, like, 40 years in advance to vote during a primary. But I would have supported Hillary.

I’m voting for Hillary now because I think she’d be a basically competent chief executive, albeit with more hawkish foreign policy views than I’d prefer, and her opponent is an anthropomorphic tumor growing from America’s colon who has somehow bound together a terrifying political alliance of white nationalists, American law enforcement, and authoritarian regimes like Russia.

Forrest Wickman, senior editor

General: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

Megan Wiegand, copy chief

General: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

This is why I’m voting for her. Also, Donald Trump’s grammar hurts my soul.

Carl Wilson, music critic

General: N/A
Primary: N/A

I’m Canadian, so I can’t vote in your election. But I love America’s music and culture, and besides you kind of run the world, so I feel obliged to tell you how strongly many of us beyond your borders feel about Donald Trump. We’ve been startled to see someone so reprehensible get so close to power. Canada has had some lousy prime ministers, and our current golden boy is letting down much of his promise. Hillary Clinton likely will disappoint, too. But Trump is on another level, for his bigotry, ignorance, and aggression—not to mention his disturbing affinity with Vladimir Putin (which, if it’s not actual collusion, seems compulsive and bizarre). I trust that Clinton is going to win, but out here in the rest of the world, we can’t fathom why it isn’t a landslide.

Jessica Winter, features editor

General: Clinton
Primary: Clinton

I voted for Hillary Clinton in the New York primary in accordance with the results of the Toddler Sticker Test, and I am voting for Hillary Clinton in the general election because I am not a deranged nihilist.

See more Slate coverage of the election.