On Tuesday night, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) hosted one of the 2024 presidential debates between former president Donald Trump and current vice-president Kamala Harris. This comes after Harris’s rise in the polls and Joe Biden’s loss of the Democratic nomination back in July.
“The debate was a good example of understanding the state of political discourse in the United States,” ethics teacher Michael Campos said. “If we were living in a fully-functioning society, a debate would be an opportunity for the candidates to express their perspectives, plans, and perhaps even hopes for the community,”
The presidential debates are a series of debates between presidential candidates in which they debate and explain their ideas and plans for the future. It is a crucial step in the election process because it allows voters to learn more about how the candidate will approach different policy issues in the country, according to the Commission on Presidential Debates.
“I think Kamala was super persuasive and her ideas were very well connected,” sophomore Adeline Sanford said. “She was so poised and elegant and everything was easy to understand,”
A collection of polling samples gathered from all over the country currently indicate that Harris has a higher voter percentage than Trump, according to Project 538. This is also reflected by Harris’s rapid-growing campaign fund, estimated to be worth about $770 million while Trump’s fund is estimated at $574 million.
“I can see why Kamala’s campaign is growing larger, especially because her performance in the debate was so good,” junior Elizabeth Fox said. “I’m excited to see what happens next,”
The presidential debate is one step in the election process. Election day is Nov 5, and every state will cast their votes and decide the next president of the United States.
“A lot of what happened in the recent debate was character assassination; an attempt to put the other person down and get under their skin,” Campos said. “As amazingly entertaining the debate honestly was, it actually didn’t change my perspective on which candidate will be a better president of the United States.”
