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On Tuesday night, at a sports bar a mile away from Capitol Hill in Washington DC, dozens of young Republicans — and independents — gathered to watch Donald Trump face off against Kamala Harris for the very first time. At the watch party, hosted by the Young Republicans of Washington DC, the energy was high.
When Trump first took the debate stage, the small sports bar in northeast DC erupted in applause and chants of: “USA!”
Then, as the camera first cut to Harris, the tone shifted to a chorus of boos and jeers. Attendees shouted, “Go back to California!” and, “Shut up!” as she made her first remarks on the economy.
One of the biggest cheers of the night wasn’t even for Trump – but rather for the moderators’ announcement that they would be moving to the immigration and border security segment.
“This is the best part,” one attendee exclaimed.
While many young Republican voters who attended had nothing but praise for the former president, others weren’t so sure about Trump’s conduct.
Several young Republican and independent voters who attended told The Independent they hoped the former president would cool down his rhetoric — even as they plan to vote for him come November.
Benaya Cherlow, a 27-year-old Israeli-American, told The Independent he supports Trump and the Republican Party and believes that Trump will be the better leader for both Israel and the US. But he also urged Trump to “control himself” and use more moderate language in order to win support.
“He needs to control himself if he wants people to believe he can make it,” Cherlow said. “It’s not only personal things against Kamala. As a person, he should be more moderate. If you want to be a leader... you should be moderate.”
David Swanke, a 40-year-old who plans to vote for Trump, echoed this sentiment, telling The Independent early into the debate that he thought there was a notable lack of “name-calling” and “cheap shots.”
Trump is, of course, no stranger to name-calling, labeling the vice president “Laffin’ Kamala,” “Lyin’ Kamala,” and, confusingly, “Kamabla” in recent weeks.
But while Trump may have started off calm, his explosiveness ramped up throughout the debate, soon falling into old habits of ranting, raving and spreading false claims.
At one point, Trump falsely claimed that Democrats want to allow abortions after a child is already born. When ABC News’s Linsey Davis fact-checked Trump’s falsehood, a murmur flew through the bar, but only a few outwardly booed or reacted to the moment. Davis was soon targeted with racist and sexist abuse online for her fact-checking.
This was just one of many false claims and theories Trump spouted throughout the debate as he repeated discredited claims about immigrants eating household pets and wildly claimed Harris wants “transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.”
For John Logan, a 26-year-old who works in politics and who isn’t planning to vote for either candidate this November, Harris was ultimately the winner of the debate.
“I think Harris has won the debate tonight,” Logan told The Independent. “Trump has to make it up in the next debate.” There are, however, so far no further debates planned between Trump and Harris.
“She really came out full force. I was expecting maybe a little bit of hesitation, maybe a little bit of difficulty on the first debate stage, but nothing,” Logan continued.
“She came out presidential and that was amazing. The way he incites his base and the rhetorical style he uses is unconstructive and doesn’t bring us together as people.”
This is something that analysts have warned poses a problem for Trump’s campaign: his tendency to go off-message and potentially turn voters off with his inflammatory rhetoric.
Evan Siegfried, a political strategist who has previously worked on GOP campaigns, told The Independent last month that Trump lacks “message discipline,” which can prompt concerns when he’s unsupervised at a rally podium or on the debate stage.
Dr Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northwestern University, agreed. “There’s always a risk that Trump will say something that will backfire on the campaign trail,” Panagopoulos told The Independent in August.
Harris played into these concerns during Tuesday night’s debate.
“He talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter [at his rallies],” the vice president said. “He will talk about how windmills cause cancer. What you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. The one thing you will not hear him talk about is you.”
While some had concerns about his messaging, many attendees at Tuesday night’s watch party had no criticisms of Trump and declared him the ultimate winner of the night.
Isaac Smith, a board member for DC Young Republicans, said he has never been concerned about Trump’s rhetoric.
“I don’t think that toning it down actually helps him,” he told The Independent.
Joan Laureano, a 20-year-old college student from Maryland who spoke to The Independent while wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, said that in his opinion, Trump undoubtedly won the debate.
Ultimately, the so-called winner of Tuesday’s debate will be decided in less than eight weeks’ time on Election Day.
While Harris is currently ahead of Trump by 2.8 points, according to the latest average of national polls, those numbers could easily shift as voters mull over what they heard on the debate stage.
As the debate came to an end, Logan voiced some of the strongest criticism of Trump in the room: “I’m not sure that this Trump ticket has a future.”
