The much anticipated September 2024 Presidential debate, is in the record books and has been considered by many to be an interesting one. Both parties claimed their candidate won the debate.
So Who Won?
While watching the two hour debate, many saw Vice President Harris as the clear winner but as time goes by, many now claim former President Trump as the winner. The loser, ABC news commentators, who were considered to be biased against Trump. The ABC moderators had fact checked President Trump more than five times, while fact checking the current VP Kamala Harris zero times. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told reporters “It was three-on-one. They continued to engage in so-called fact-checking of Donald Trump. They never did that to Kamala Harris.” Tim Murtaugh, a member of the Trump campaign said, “It was a little outrageous that they would fact-check only one candidate on the fly.” Many Harris supporters felt she had ABC on her side.
“Unfortunately, we had moderators who were clearly biased, who were constantly fact-checking Donald Trump,” said RFK Jr, a new supporter of the former President.
Despite the disagreement that may arise from who had the upper hand, the current VP has been very loose with her policies. She also avoided disclosing exactly what her policies are. Harris has adopted some of Trump’s plans over the past couple months. The Vice President has also changed her stance from 2020 and voters are unsure exactly where she stands on certain issues. For example, in Pennsylvania, Kamala reports she now supports fracking. In 2020 however she stated, “There’s no question, I’m in favor of banning fracking,” Harris said at a CNN town hall. The then senator even said on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for a segment two weeks later, stating that she would finally put “an end to fracking once and for all.”
These are the type of policy flip flops that can impact voters. ABC commentators did not question VP Harris enough for voters to get a clarification of her policies and her unclear policy may lead voters to make their own conclusions for better or worse.
Student Opinions
I went to the Cortland campus to ask students what they had thought of the debate.
Kaitlyn M, a student at SUNY Cortland said, “I think Kamala won the debate but only for the fact of the moderators. It was obvious that the former president was “under the gun” and wasn’t given a fair shot. Kamala Harris wasn’t fact checked once on the claims she made about the former president. You didn’t have to be a democrat or a republican to see the obvious bias shown.”
Another student Riley M had this to say about the matter, “Being an independent I was surprised to say I am in favor of Trump more than ever now. Watching the way he was teamed up against really made me wonder about the last time he was president. We had no wars, lower gas prices, low inflation, and stronger borders. I voted for Biden in hopes of more unity within the country and I think now we are more divided than ever.”
Although this may be the one and only debate we get from these two candidates, we can see for some this hasn’t changed any minds. Democrat or Republican favoritism and bias shown during the debate from a moderator is not acceptable. Moderators are supposed to be neutral. For the good of this country’s future, the broadcast networks need to stop pushing their own personal agendas, but host a neutral unbiased debate in which actual policies are discussed so voters can be informed from the candidates themselves, rather than the internet, prior to going to the voting polls.