The first presidential debate of 2024 did little to change minds and reach voters, especially undecided voters.
The top two candidates running for the most powerful job in the world stepped onto the stage virtually tied.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump had 90 minutes to convince voters they are of sound mind and have the vigor to lead the country for another four years.
Both candidates are equally unpopular with a majority of Americans who, according to polling, aren’t happy with their options in the 2024 presidential election.
Biden needed a breakthrough moment to climb out of a 38% approval rating. His low numbers are partially driven by concerns voters have about his age. At 81, he’s the oldest American president. And though that’s a mere three years older than Trump, some public missteps have made Biden’s age more of an issue with voters. A poor debate performance only intensified fears about his mental acuity.
Trump needed to tap into voters’ concerns about inflation, immigration and public safety. Though crime and economic data are improving, the public sentiment around those issues is not. Biden, as the incumbent, is shouldering the blame. Trump needed to use his knack of tapping in and amplifying American anxiety to expand his support beyond his showing in the 2020 election, which he lost. And he needed to persuade undecided voters, particularly independents, by leaning into the populism that helped him win in 2016 and leaning far away from his litany of unsubstantiated claims.
Just minutes in, it was clear that neither candidate would change many minds.
Biden tried to sound less like Washington, D.C. and more like blue-collar Scranton, Pennsylvania.
“Working class people are still in trouble,” Biden said early in the debate. It felt like an understatement. He rattled off a list of plans that likely zipped past most viewers, despite that those plans are some of the solutions Americans are seeking.
Trump touted “the greatest economy in the history of the country.” Everything was “rocking good,” he said. But that, too, was poorly stated.
How many of you feel like your lives were better under Trump or Biden? And if your life has been better during the last eight years, would you really attribute your success to their leadership?
This election is about you, the voters. The voters are more important in this election than the candidates. But more time was spent trading barbs and debating which president was worse than offering solutions for you. And the focus after this debate will likely center on how the candidates appeared.
Biden appeared weak, with a hoarse voice and stumbling through some of his answers. Trump appeared as he often does at his rallies, reciting his greatest hits of one-liners and spewing exaggerations.
Biden’s best moments came when he talked about foreign policy, Trump’s inaction during the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, abortion and Trump’s legal cases.
“The only person on the stage that is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now,” Biden said.
Trump responded with a shrug.
In one of Trump’s lowest moments, he defended his supporters who ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He called them “innocent” and lamented the consequences they’ve faced in court.
If Biden won on substance, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if he said he wanted to restore Roe v. Wade — a top issue for many women across the country — while Trump cheered the Supreme Court for overturning it. The raspy way in which Biden spoke about abortion and most things did little to assuage anxieties about his fitness for office. He may have raised more concerns.
And though Trump kept fact checkers busy with his hyperbole and false claims on a range of subjects, he appeared more youthful than Biden when he said it.
I wish style didn’t matter more than substance. So many things in life would be easier.
I wish voters had better choices — the choices they really wanted to see on primary and general election ballots.
But they have a presumptive Republican nominee who largely dodged a question about whether he would defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution and offered more adjectives than solid plans.
And they have a Democratic incumbent who is trying to convince voters to give him eight years to do what he hasn’t been able to accomplish in four, which is always a tenuous position.
Both landed some low blows, with Biden saying Trump has the morals of “an alley cat” and Trump slamming the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
They’re likely to remain in a virtual tie in the months to come, as Trump maintains slight leads in national polls and battleground states.
It’s hard to walk away from this debate and feel like anyone won when some of the last words were about weight and golf swings, but I think we all lost.
