WASHINGTON – The sound you may have heard after the presidential debate Last week was a week of voters falling between a rock and a hard place.
In addition to the considerable and pumped universe of Donald Trump’s supporters, the debate suddenly crystallized 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 faced a choice between two extremely unpopular candidates. They then watched as Trump told a flow of falsehoods with sharpness, vigor and conviction, while Biden fought hard to get debate points and even to pronounce many sentences. That raised doubts about the 81-year-old Democratic president’s fitness to remain in office for another four years.
Now the options are even more daunting for many Democrats, swing voters and anti-Trump Republicans. Many people watched the debate very conflicted.
Outside a Whole Foods in downtown Denver on Friday, registered Democrat Matthew Toellner cocked his head to the side, mouth agape, in an imitation of his favorite candidate, Biden, who has been seen doing this at times on screen divided when Trump spoke Thursday night.
“I’m going to vote for Biden,” said Toellner, 49, leaning against the supermarket’s wooden wall.
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 having to do this.”
His plea to Biden and Democrats: “Please resign, get someone electable.”
On a Detroit park bench, Arabia Simeon felt politically homeless after voting Democratic in the last two presidential elections. “It feels like we are doomed no matter what,” she said.
Trump’s disregard for facts permeated his arguments, although he was rarely asked about the details during the debate. On abortion, for example, one of the most controversial issues in America for generations, the former Republican president stated that there is universal agreement that states should decide on its legality. There are fierce arguments about this.
But did it matter? The public reaction, in dozens of interviews across the country, brought to mind 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 right.”
The debate untied Simeon, just as it did Toellner.
The 27-year-old Detroit start-up owner entered debate night deciding between Biden and an independent candidate, the most prominent of whom is the unlikely Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“I think it kind of validated the feeling that I was having that this election was going to be extremely eventful and it’s no longer the conversation about the lesser of two evils for me,” she said on a park bench during a work break. . “It’s more like these two candidates don’t seem like viable options.”
Simeon said that as a person of color and queer, “it’s really disheartening to know that no matter how far we get as a country, we’re still going to have a factory reset when it comes to president and we’re going to have to make a choice between two white men.”
For the most part, Democratic lawmakers in Washington and party officials in the United States have closed ranks around Biden, despite the panic that gripped many of them over his debate performance. But his remarks were measured, appearing to leave an opening if Biden did the extraordinary decision get the Democrats to find another candidate.
“President Biden’s decision is what he wants to do with his life,” said Sharif Street, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and a state senator.
In fact, many Biden supporters saw nothing to discourage them, even though they tended to think he screwed up.
“Worrying,” Jocardo Ralston of Philadelphia said of Biden’s turn to take the stage. However, Ralston said, “I am not conflicted, nor do I feel like I am choosing the lesser of two evils. … Biden is not the ideal choice for many, but he is the only choice for me, with no regrets 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 the work I do and everything I fight for is in direct opposition to Trump, his values and his policies,” he said.
Biden gave a more spirited performance Friday at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he acknowledged he is not 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,” “defined” and “very clear” in his comments at the rally. In a debate watched by around 51.3 million people, according to a preliminary estimate from the company Nielsen, Biden’s performance “was not as good as today”.
Amina Barhumi, 44, of Orland Park, Illinois, is affiliated with the Muslim Civic Coalition and is evaluating Biden and Trump, in part, on how she expects each to act in the interests of American Muslims. Consider her also demoralized by her candidate choices. She is hearing “essentially the same rhetoric” from both.
“We have not-so-great options that are favorites,” she said. “Yesterday was an affirmation of exactly that.”
“Frankly, I think it was very difficult to watch,” she said of the debate. “I have teenagers and it seemed like a lot of pointless fighting and 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, Illinois; and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
