WASHINGTON (AP) — After last week’s presidential debate, you may have heard the impression that voters were caught between a rock and a strenuous place.
Beyond Donald Trump’s immense and excited following, the debate suddenly revealed the concern of many Americans, including some of President Joe Biden’s supporters, that neither man was fit to lead the nation.
Before the first debate of the campaign, voters were faced with a choice between two strikingly unpopular candidates. They then saw Trump spout a barrage of falsehoods with sharpness, force and conviction, while Biden struggled to get his points across and even finish many sentences, heightening doubts about the 81-year-old Democratic president’s ability to remain in office for another four years.
Now the options are even more daunting for many Democrats, undecided voters and anti-Trump Republicans. Quite a few viewers left the debate with very mixed feelings.
Outside a Whole Foods in downtown Denver on Friday, registered Democrat Matthew Toellner tilted his head to the side with his mouth open, imitating his favorite candidate, Biden. Toellner was seen on the split screen at times as Trump spoke on Thursday evening.
“I’m going to vote for Biden,” said Toellner, 49, leaning against the grocery store’s wood paneling. “Actually, maybe not.”
A few minutes later, Toellner looked at the road and thought again. “I’m going to vote for Biden. I think I’d be a fool not to. But I just hate that I have to do it.”
His appeal to Biden and the Democrats: “Please step down and vote for someone who is electable.”
Sitting on a park bench in Detroit, Arabia Simeon felt politically homeless after voting Democratic in the last two presidential elections. “It just feels like we’re doomed one way or another,” she said.
Trump’s arguments were marked by a disregard for the facts, even though he was rarely asked about specifics during the debate. On abortion, for example, one of the most controversial issues in America for generations, the former Republican president claimed that there was general agreement that states should decide on the legality of abortion. There is fierce debate on this.
But did it matter? The public reaction, 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 uncertain, they want someone who is strong and wrong rather than someone who is weak and right.”
The debate left Simeon as unnerved as Toellner.
The 27-year-old owner of a Detroit start-up had to choose between Biden and an independent candidate on the evening of the debate. The most prominent among them is the outsider Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Now she is leaning against Biden.
“I think it kind of confirmed my feeling that this election was going to be extremely frenetic and it’s no longer the lesser of two evils for me,” she said during a break from work on a park bench. “It’s more that 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 come as a country, when it comes to electing president, we’re still going to be reset to factory settings and have to choose between two white men.”
Democratic lawmakers in Washington and party officials across the U.S. have largely rallied behind Biden, despite the panic that gripped many of them over his performance in the debate. But their comments were measured and seemed to leave a window of opportunity should Biden make the extraordinary decision to let Democrats find another candidate.
“It’s President Biden’s decision what he wants to do with his life,” said Sharif Street, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and a state senator. “So far, he’s decided he’s our candidate, and I stand behind him.”
Certainly, many Biden supporters saw nothing that could have unsettled them, even if they were more inclined to think that he had messed up.
“It’s worrying,” said Jocardo Ralston of Philadelphia about Biden’s performance. But Ralston said, “I’m not torn, nor do I feel like I’m choosing the lesser of two evils. … Biden is not the ideal choice for many, but for me he is the only choice, without regret or 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 classrooms, watched the debate at a Cincinnati bar while visiting the city. “All of my work and everything I fight for is in direct opposition to Trump, his values and his policies,” he said.
Biden appeared more spirited at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday, acknowledging that he was no longer the debater he once was. “I know how to do this job,” he said. “I know how to get things done.” He attacked Trump in a way he had not managed the night before.
“I thought, ‘Well, Joe, why didn’t you say that last night?'” said Maureen Dougher, 73, who found Biden’s remarks at the rally “strong,” “decisive” and “very clear.” In a debate watched by an estimated 51.3 million people, according to a preliminary estimate by Nielsen, Biden’s performance “didn’t come across as well as it did today.”
Amina Barhumi, 44, of Orland Park, Illinois, is a member of the Muslim Civic Coalition and assesses Biden and Trump based on, among other things, how she expects each of them to act in the interests of American Muslims. She, too, is said to be demoralized by the selection of candidates. She hears “essentially the same rhetoric” from both.
“We don’t have great options that are considered favorites,” she said. “Yesterday, that’s exactly what was confirmed.”
“Honestly, I think it was very hard to watch,” she said of the debate. “I have teenagers and it seemed like a bunch of bickering and pointless name-calling. And I think the American audience 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, Illinois, and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
