There is no nice way to say it ‒ Thursday’s presidential debate was a mess. We’re almost a week out, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the dumpster fire it tuned into and what it means to young voters.
I don’t expect a lot from debates as it is. Every debate I’ve watched previously has been disappointing. Typically, both sides declare victory. That isn’t what happened last Thursday.
Thursday night’s debate cast doubt on the mental capacity of President Joe Biden. It was so bad that members of his own party are now calling for him to drop out of the race. It also gave former President Donald Trump a platform to spew falsehoods without the benefit of a real-time fact-checking.
As a Gen Z voter, the debate left me feeling helpless. Biden’s answers left me unsatisfied and worried about his mental capacity. Trump’s inaccurate remarks on abortion and hateful rhetoric about immigrants left me worried about the state of the country if he does return to the presidency. Neither of these candidates are good.
Gen Z isn’t enthusiastic about Biden
It was a particularly bad night for Generation Z, born from 1997 to 2012. It’s an age demographic already unenthusiastic about Biden despite favoring the Democratic Party in polling data.
Instead of the strong statements I hoped Biden would make about abortion, student loans and the Israel-Hamas war, the president was clearly struggling to answer questions and even froze up for a few seconds during a question on the economy. Trump was at his Trumpiest, which bodes well for his fervent supporters and agitates the rest of us who can’t stand him.
A spring Harvard poll found a gap in enthusiasm among the age demographic: 76% of Gen Z Trump voters were enthusiastic about their candidate, compared with 44% of Gen Z Biden voters.
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According to the Harvard poll, a little over half of Gen Z is planning on voting in November. Since the Tufts Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement estimates that 40.8 million Zoomers will be eligible to vote, it’s probable that at least 20.4 million of them will actually cast ballots. Those are voters whom neither candidate can afford to lose.
My generation could decide the election.
While there isn’t data on how Gen Z specifically reacted to the debate, I’m pretty doubtful it moved the needle in Biden’s favor, which is ultimately the most distressing when you consider how terrible a candidate Trump is.
Biden clearly lost the debate. That’s not a question.
Across age ranges, Biden is taking a hit from the debate.
A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll found that more than 40% of Democrats believe Biden should be replaced on the Democratic Party ticket. Although Trump is now a convicted felon, only 14% of Republicans believe he should be replaced on the ticket.
For Gen Z, that means deciding between two old men: one who is supposedly in cognitive decline and another who will do anything to win. Many Gen Z voters already took issue with Biden’s handling of what’s going on in Gaza and the state of our economy.
He certainly didn’t make a good case for himself Thursday night.
But none of that means makes Trump a better option for young voters who already wanted no part of him.
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Trump is still the same threat he was before the debate, and Republicans still pretend he’s not
As debate discourse continues, we can’t allow Biden’s poor performance to overshadow the lies that Trump told onstage. He claimed that abortions were happening after birth. He claimed that immigrants were taking Black and Hispanic jobs and used “Palestinian” as an insult.
He lied about his own relationship with Stormy Daniels. He even smirked when Biden called him a “convicted felon.”
Trump wanted to gather more sound bites for his zealous supporters, and he got them. Whether he won over undecided voters is still unclear. The USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll found that Trump is inching ahead of Biden, but there are still four months before the election. Anything could happen ‒ including the replacement of either candidate.
Editorial boards at news organizations nationwide have called on both candidates to drop out of the race. I doubt that either of them will ‒ no matter how much we wish for different circumstances, these are the two men on our ballots in November.
I am especially doubtful that Republicans would actually pressure Trump to step down, considering they have excused his actions up to this point. They seem fine with supporting an election-denying felon.
While I am sympathetic to the argument that Biden should step down, I am also aware that doing so would launch the United States into chaos.
While Trump may be performing better in the polls, voters are the ones who lost on Thursday night. The Democrats in particular need to think about how Biden is perceived by our nation’s youngest voters, and consider the possibility of finding someone new for the job. They need to have an honest conversation that Republicans refuse to have and that Biden’s performance lets them keep ignoring.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno and Facebook facebook.com/PequenoWrites