Large Crowd Watches the First Presidential Debate
Posted Sep 11, 2024
Over 50 students crowded into a classroom to watch the first presidential debate last night. Students had to bring in chairs from surrounding classrooms or stand in the hallway to watch the debate with their colleagues and talk about the debate.
At the beginning, Dr. Evans handed out Debate Bingo cards and introduced the debate. He found that most people thought former President Trump would win the debate with very few thinking Harris would win. He also found that very few of the students who were present were undecided. Most students were going to support Trump which is not surprising at an evangelical university.
Once the debate started, students could watch and play debate bingo. Mr. Brake created a bingo card with various catch phrases that he expected candidates to use at the debate. Possible entries included things like January 6th, Cats, Project 2025, inflation, fake news, Wall, weird, abortion. Students could mark their card as the debate progressed and if they got five in a row, they could yell Bingo. The first person to hit Bingo was Abby Billington who was followed by Grady Allen, Charles Bryant, Carlton Harris, and the joint team of Katie Mullins and Audrey Taylor (aka France from last Spring’s Diplomacy game). These students hit bingo in the 35-40 minute range of the debate. We then reset the bingo games and Carlton Harris once again hit Bingo.
Ryan Wagy and Nick Truitt were our debate statisticians. They were counting mulitple things throughout the debate. They found that Trump insulted Harris 53 times while Harris insulted Trump 44 times. Each candidates didn’t answer the question asked eight times. Trump framed a response in a “slimy manner” 17 times to Harris’ 11 times. Trump also gave an absolute answer 45 times to Harris doing so 8 times. Trump used 45 absolute terms compared to Harris making 8 absolute statements. The idea is that the candidate made an absolute statement when one was not warranted (e.g., All Democrats, Republicans, and Independents wanted to return Roe v Wade to the states).
At the first intermission of the debate, Dr. Evans asked how the students thought the candidates were doing. An overwhelming number thought neither was doing a good job nor“winning” the debate. When asked about what lines stuck out to them, they recalled “love letter from Kim Jong Un.” A major criticism is that the candidates were not very focused on policy.
At the end of the debate, Dr. Evans spoke with the students again. This time, the group was divided into approximate thirds of Trump, Vice President Harrs, and neither winning the debate. The results showed that Trump did worse than students expected while Harris did better. The students had some negative impressions of both candidates thinking Trump was “very aggressive” and Harris was “condescending.” When asked if anyone changed their minds about who they might support, no one was likely to change their vote. During the discussion, Dr. Evans talked with the students about how Harris baited Trump throughout the debate, how Harris cleared the bar of proving shed had the knowledge and competence to be president, the ways that both candidates tried to prove they were the change candidate, and that Trump spoke more to his base while Harris tried to appeal to swing voters.