Debate takeaways
For Steven Beck of Madison, Alabama, neither candidate lived up to his expectations. This election year is probably the first time he’s been truly undecided, he told us.
“One of the things that I had difficulty with throughout the entire debate was the lack of specifics,” he said.
He’s not alone.
Anna Flores, a voter who lives in a Phoenix suburb, said she would have appreciated more specifics in what was most likely the only Harris-Trump debate we’ll get before November’s election. Before the debate, Flores said she was against Trump.
“I don't trust either of them as commander-in-chief or even as necessarily head of government,” she said, though she plans to do more research before casting her official vote.
Zach Horn of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, said Harris did a “fantastic job” in the debate.
“I thought there was some policy depth that was offered,” he said, though he thought moderators questioned Trump more than his opponent on some issues.
Robert Lilly of Wickenburg, Arizona, said he’s “not 100 percent until election time.”
He thought Harris told “too many lies” during the debate, “and I expect that to go on.” He currently plans to vote for Trump.
Jessica Dalton of Salt Lake City said she looks forward to Harris and her running mate speaking more on their
economic stances, specifically their small business initiatives. Child care and women’s health care are also important to her.
For Stephen Stone of Brooklyn, New York, the debate felt “like a race to the bottom, more than anything.”
“It's not about anybody having any sort of real ideology and the concerns of the majority of American people at heart,” he said, “It's all very much about just being better than your competitor.”
On voting and the outlook
“Not voting is never an option,” Dalton said. “That is my privilege as an American citizen. People have laid down their lives for that, and I will vote in every election that I'm asked to vote in.”
Horn said he’s a voter who waits until the last second.
“As divisive as it is,” he said, “I still think that I still have, like this belief that we're going to be OK and that we're going to do the right thing and that things are going to be all right.”
Stone said voting in elections “are not easy decisions to make.”
“They touch on so many aspects of our lives, and they don't just affect us individually. They affect us globally,” he added.
