Dilshad Ali had never felt the fear.

Not when Donald Trump proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States, a plan his own running mate called "offensive and unconstitutional."

Not when Trump suggested monitoring mosques and torturing terrorism suspects. Not even when

Islamophobic incidents spiked to their highest levels since the 9/11 attacks.

In some ways, Ali, a 40-year-old mother of three, had been buffered from the long and brutal 2016 presidential campaign.

She trods familiar ground in her

Until Wednesday morning.

"I woke up today and I finally felt it. It felt personal, like the election was a vote against me."

As a tumultuous Tuesday ticked toward a worry-producing Wednesday, scores of Muslim imams and activists, soccer moms and scholars, commiserated over their concern and uncertainty, even as they pledged to hold fast to their faith and build stronger coalitions with fellow minorities.

Some said this election felt like a betrayal, as if half the country had turned on them.

Virginia home. She drops her children off at school, where the teachers know her and she knows them. She shops at the same grocery store, where the people smile at her and she smiles back, her face framed by a hijab.

At her polling station on Tuesday, she was greeted warmly by neighbors, even the ones whose cars bore pro-Trump stickers.

Dalia Mogahed, a researcher and pollster, said she is in shock, unable to believe that more than 50.5 million Americans voted to elect Donald Trump as president.

But Mogahed said she is determined not to change a "single plan.” She will continue to advocate on behalf of this country's estimated 3.3 million Muslims and to wear her hijab in public, proudly announcing her identity as a Muslim.