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First-time independent voter Benaja Richardson tuned into Tuesday’s now-infamous debate between US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the hope that they will be presented with a vision of the future and unity amid the current climate turbulence.
Instead, the 18-year-old student from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a potentially indecisive state, said it opened her eyes to “truly the catastrophic times that we are in.”
“That night was supposed to be about what kind of change is taking place towards our future, what kind of new policies are going to be enacted and it was about the two candidates destroying each other’s past, so it didn’t take us nowhere, ”said Richardson, who plans to vote for former Democratic Vice President Biden.
In the next two planned debates, if they go ahead after the president’s coronavirus infection and refusal to accept the new debate rules, he said he wants to see “more professionalism out of all … and not just a bunch of discussions.”
The unprecedented televised debate, which saw chaotic scenes of lingering interruptions and outbursts, largely led by Trump, including the president’s refusal to condemn white supremacists, was met with near universal condemnation from viewers, journalists and commentators.
CNN’s chief political correspondent Dana Bash immediately billed it as a live “shit show,” while her colleague Jake Tapper described it as “a hot mess inside a dumpster inside a train accident.”
Even Fox News host Chris Wallace, who moderated the debate and was criticized for not applying more scrutiny to procedures, later said: “I never dreamed he would get off track like he did.”
Raffaello Vancouten, a Brooklyn restaurant and bar owner, agreed with Bash’s verdict. “It was shit,” said the 40-year-old, who did not say how he plans to vote.
“The idea is to move votes, right? Motivate people to come out and vote. Neither side did that. As a business owner, as a fiscally conservative person, a bit of a Democrat, nothing was done by either side. They didn’t go across the hall at all. “
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia (UVA) Center for Politics, has watched each and every televised debate in American presidential history since the tradition began with John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. .
“This wasn’t just the worst… it was a disaster. It was horrible. It was mainly, I would say 75-80% due to Donald Trump. And then most of the remaining 20-25% would be Chris Wallace for not doing his job. “
But he said Biden shouldn’t have called Trump a “clown,” adding: “We’re not used to that kind of thing in presidential debates. We expect the candidates to maintain a modicum of dignity. “
The biggest impact of the debate will be on Trump, he said, taking away his “greatest chance to regain ground.” The president is currently lagging behind in polls, behind Biden by 7.2 points nationally on the RealClearPolitics average.
Polls also show that the majority of American voters believe the president lost the first debate. A CNBC / Change Research poll found that 53% of likely voters said Biden performed better in the debate, compared with 29% who thought Trump won.
“If I had won that debate, people would have started talking about Trump’s return,” said Sabato, who estimates that only 3% to 5% of Americans have yet to decide how they will vote.
For the upcoming debates, he said that millions more will have already cast their votes. And for the final debate, he estimates that they will have voted “a third or more.”
The disastrous event led to plans for an “additional structure” for the remaining debates. But Trump indicated Thursday that he would not agree to any rule changes, tweeting: “Why would you allow the Debate Committee to change the rules for the second and third debates when I won easily last time?”
Sabato called for the remaining discussions to be canceled. “They should just cancel them… You can’t have a civil discussion with Donald Trump. Surely we already know, ”he said.
Michigan student Tuhin Chakraborty, 20, who endorsed Pete Buttigieg in the Democratic primary, said he was impressed by Biden’s performance but that Trump “acted like a child.” He added: “When I hear the term ‘Mr. President’ I really hope I don’t hear that kind of behavior and I was very disappointed that he behaved like a child, not like a president.”
Chakraborty, who lives in Ann Arbor, said the Presidential Debate Committee “needs to do a much better job of maintaining a different rule structure to make sure the candidates can express not only rhetoric but also what their political ideas are.”
But by the next debate, in many cases it might be too late to have an impact on voters.
In the critical state of Florida, Matt Florell, president of St Pete Polls, said trends have solidified in recent months, with just 1-2% of voters still undecided and with “unprecedented” enthusiasm for the early voting. “It doesn’t really seem like a lot of external events are influencing people right now to change their minds.”
Jacqueline Salit, president of Independentvoting.org, a national organization that represents the interests of independent voters in the United States, believes that many independents did not watch the debates because they are “fed up with the process now.” But she predicts that the majority of independent voters will vote Democrats.
Many independent women she has spoken to who watched the debate compared it to “watching two young children in a sandbox fight.” She added: “Trump revealed the level of his harassment to a new level.”
Chris Jackson, the head of public polling for Ipsos in the United States, said the debate “smashed even the lowest expectations.”
“The extremely divisive tone, the extremely disrespectful tone, particularly from President Trump towards Joe Biden, was simply shocking to most people who are used to a much more dignified debating environment, particularly in presidential debates.”
But functionally, you don’t expect it to have much of an impact on the election. According to his poll, “there was almost no movement” in people’s voting intention for any of the candidates. But, he said, “Biden may have solidified the support behind him a bit.”
He predicts a different tone than vice presidential candidates Mike Pence and Kamala Harris on Wednesday night in Salt Lake City, which he hopes will be “relatively nice.”
But when it comes to the final two presidential debates, currently scheduled for October 15 in Miami and October 22 in Nashville, “all bets are off.” And he added: “If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that it can always get worse.”
