WASHINGTON — The sound you may have heard after the presidential debate This past week there were voters who fell through the cracks.
Apart from the significant and inflated universe of Donald Trump’s supporters, the debate has suddenly highlighted the concerns of many Americans, including some of President Joe Biden’s supporters, that neither man is fit to lead the nation.
Heading into the first debate of the general election campaign, voters were faced with a choice between two strikingly unpopular candidates. Then they watched as Trump told A stream of untruths with sharpness, force and conviction, as Biden struggled mightily to land talking points and even get many sentences through, raising doubts about the 81-year-old Democratic president’s fitness to stay in power for another four years.
Now the options are even more daunting for many Democrats, undecided voters and anti-Trump Republicans. More than a few people came away from watching the debate feeling very conflicted.
Outside a Whole Foods in downtown Denver on Friday, registered Democrat Matthew Toellner cocked his head to the side, mouth open, following the lead of his favored candidate, Biden, who occasionally saw the split screen as Trump spoke Thursday night.
“I’m going to vote for Biden,” said Toellner, 49, leaning against the supermarket’s wooden siding. “Actually, maybe not.”
A few minutes later, Toellner looked at the street and thought again. “I’m going to vote for Biden, I think I’d be a fool if I didn’t. But I just hate that I have to do that.”
His call to Biden and the Democrats: “Please resign, make someone eligible.”
On a park bench in Detroit, Arabia Simeon felt politically homeless after voting Democratic in the past two presidential elections. “I feel like we’re doomed anyway,” she said.
Trump’s disregard for the facts permeated his arguments, though he was rarely challenged on the details during the debate. On abortion, for example, one of America’s most divisive issues in generations, the former Republican president claimed there was universal agreement that states should decide its legality. That’s been hotly debated.
But did that matter? The public response, in dozens of interviews across the country, was reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s post-presidency assessment of what voters want in difficult times: “When people feel insecure, they would rather have someone strong and wrong than weak and good. ”
The debate unsettled Simeon, just like Toellner.
The 27-year-old Detroit startup owner entered a debate night deciding between Biden and an independent candidate, the most prominent of whom was Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is. Now she’s leaning against Biden.
“I think it just confirmed the feeling that I had that this election was going to be extremely hectic, and that for me it’s no longer a conversation about the lesser of two evils,” she said from a park bench during a break at work. “It’s more like neither candidate feels like a viable option.”
Simeon said that as a Black and queer person, “it’s really disheartening to know that no matter how far we get as a country, we’re still going back to factory settings when it comes to the president and having to choose between two white men.”
To a large extent, Democratic lawmakers in Washington and party officials in the United States closed ranks around Biden, despite the panic that gripped many of them over his debate performance. But their comments were measured and seemed to leave an opening like Biden the extraordinary decision to let the Democrats find another candidate.
“It is President Biden’s decision what he wants to do with his life,” said Sharif Street, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and senator. “So far he has decided he is our candidate, and I support him.”
To be fair, many Biden supporters saw nothing to faze them, no matter how much they thought he was messing up.
“Worrying,” Jocardo Ralston of Philadelphia said of Biden’s turn on stage. Still, Ralston said, “I’m not conflicted, nor do I feel like I’m choosing the lesser of two evils. … Biden is not the ideal choice for many, but he is the only choice for me, without regrets or regrets. hesitation.”
The third-year doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, whose work focuses on the experiences of queer black and Latino boys in special education classes, watched the debate at a Cincinnati bar when he visited the city. “Everything I do and everything I fight for is diametrically opposed to Trump and his values and his policies,” he said.
Biden gave a more energetic performance Friday at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he acknowledged that he is no longer the debater he used to be. “I know how to do this job,” he said. “I know how to get things done.” He attacked Trump in ways that escaped him the night before.
“I thought, ‘Well Joe, why didn’t you say that last night?’” said Maureen Dougher, 73, who called Biden “strong,” “definitive” and “very clear” in his rally remarks. In a debate watched by an estimated 51.3 million people, Biden’s performance “did not come across as well as today,” according to a preliminary estimate from the Nielsen company.
Amina Barhumi, 44, of Orland Park, Illinois, is affiliated with Muslim Civic Coalition and rates Biden and Trump partly on how she expects both to act in the interests of American Muslims. Also consider her demoralized about the candidate choices. She hears “basically the same rhetoric” from both.
“We have not-so-great options that are front-runners on the ticket,” she said. “Yesterday was confirmation of exactly that.”
“To be honest, I found it very difficult to watch,” she said of the debate. “I have teenagers and it felt like a lot of bickering and nonsensical swearing. And I think the American public expects more.”
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Associated Press journalists Jesse Bedayn in Denver; Mike Householder in Detroit; Carolyn Kaster in Cincinnati; Melissa Perez Winder in Bridgeview, Ill.; and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
