On September 10, ABC sponsored the second 2024 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Following President Joe Biden’s historic withdrawal from the presidential race, the September debate drew 67.14 million viewers in contrast to 51.3 million viewers for the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I spoke with a few students afterward to understand how the debate was received on campus.
All of the students I spoke to noted a difference in conduct between the candidates. Braeden Peterson (senior, physics and math) said “one of them [Trump] was rude and racist and refused to answer questions, and was attacking the other the entire time, while the other [Harris] acted like a president should—she actually interacted with the content of the debate and generally acted with poise and grace.” Bia Martins (senior, MLS) similarly noted that “it seemed to go better for Harris than it did for Trump. She sounded a lot more coherent than him, and a lot more respectable.” Lexie Dunham (senior, psychology) described the debate as an “SNL skit,” saying that “Donald Trump kept saying the most outlandish things, and what really made it interesting to watch was the fact checkers correcting most of what he said. I was actually laughing! Very dystopian.”
The quality of Trump’s comments dominated my conversations with each student—both Bia and Chris Ngugi (senior, psychology) noted in particular a false statement he made about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating the pets of residents in Ohio. Bia recounted, laughing, “The moderator corrected him and said that there are no credible sources for this, and then he said ‘Oh, but I saw it on television!’ Grow up! Not everything you see on television is real! Shouldn’t [he] know that by now?” Chris explained that he fears repercussions for the Haitian community in Ohio, stating that “People are fairly laughing, because it’s ridiculous, but at the same time it does worry me—this is the kind of rhetoric that millions and millions of people genuinely believe to their core. I don’t know of any Trump supporters who would hear that and turn away [from him].”
Key topics—those that the students felt would be crucial for the upcoming election—circled primarily around immigration and abortion. However, all students noted that both candidates were quite vague about their policies. “Donald Trump was exceptionally vague,” Braeden said. “He seemed to use a lot of buzz words to try and rile people up. Harris was also pretty unclear—she talked about base concepts but avoided specifics.” Lexie concurred, saying “For both participants there were moments where answers seemed vague; but I feel like Harris was able to get her answer across more.” The ambiguity of the candidates’ answers were particularly important to Chris’s main takeaway from the debate—he explained to me that “I think [the debate] is more for each candidate to rile up the people that support them. And I think that’s exactly what they did.”
In the end, none of the participants felt that the debate swayed them from their previous political inclinations. However, they did hope that it might have some impact on undecided voters—perhaps this debate will be a significant force in swinging untapped voter populations to the polls.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.