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.

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Former usher Skip Allen, who retired in 2004 after 25 years, says he wouldn’t want to work for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. “The Clintons can’t make up their minds about what they really want. You never knew what they were going to ask for or when they were going to ask for it.” Once, he says, Hillary called him asking him to tell the chef to stop serving a particular chicken dish. Within a month he got another call from the then First Lady: “We are really missing that chicken dish. Why isn’t it on the menu anymore?” Allen was at a loss, so he called the chef and asked him to add it back on. He says the Clintons were paranoid and had the phone system changed because they didn’t like having an operator connect them. The president and the First Lady wanted to make calls themselves so that no one could listen in. “They weren’t comfortable with the staff and I don’t think a second chance at the White House would make them any less insecure,” he says.

The transition to the next administration starts for residence workers about 18 months before the actual inauguration. The chief usher prepares books for the incoming president and First Lady that include a detailed White House layout, a list of staff, and what changes they are allowed to make to the Oval Office. While researching my 2015 book, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, former chief usher Gary Walters told me he would start gathering information on the candidates during the primaries, well before a general-election candidate was chosen. “The ownership is of the family that’s there, but you have to be watching out for what’s going to occur,” Walters said.