NY.- The first presidential debate served as a trigger for an election season that has spiraled into a showdown between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.
Many were excited by the debate, others were afraid of it, and some were unsure of what was going to happen.
We want to understand voters’ thoughts on the debate through the lens of weekend news consumption.
To do this, we asked six voters across the country to follow all the news related to the debate, days after the event.
Over the weekend, they checked news articles, social media comments on X, Instagram and Reddit, podcasts on YouTube, clips from TV shows and even text messages between friends.
They didn’t report much different sentiment across all those platforms and media outlets — on the contrary, it was a surprising unity about how bad the debate was.
All six voters said they felt confronted with the reality of the president’s age in the content they saw.
Comments on social media expressed displeasure with both candidates and that resonated especially among young voters who plan to cast their ballots for Biden.
Arina Trotter, a 20-year-old student from Bloomington, Indiana, who is registered as an independent, watched the debate feeling confident she would vote for Biden, but with little enthusiasm.
She was surprised that she ended up feeling more disappointed with the options than she had been before.
“I didn’t see anything positive.” “I’ve seen a lot of comments about the lack of faith in our democracy and the two-party system, specifically about the age of the two candidates and the repeated alignment, there was a lot of disappointment with Biden’s performance.”
Because everyone focused on Biden’s dismal performance, few issues or policies emerged from the debate.
The videos focused on Biden’s obvious problems in the debate, with only brief mention of policy and immigration.
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