How Undecided Voters Reacted to the Harris-Trump Debate

Voters said the vice president talked about a sweeping vision to fix the country’s most stubborn problems. But they wanted the fine print.

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Vice President Kamala Harris greeting campaign staff in Philadelphia after the debate on Tuesday night.

For weeks, undecided voters have been asking for more substance.

So it was perhaps no accident that Vice President Kamala Harris’s first words during the presidential debate on Tuesday were, “I am actually the only person on this stage who has a plan.”

Some Americans might need more convincing.

Bob and Sharon Reed, both 77-year-old retired teachers who live on a farm in central Pennsylvania, had high hopes for the debate between Ms. Harris and former President Donald Trump. They thought that they would come away with a candidate to support in November.

But, Ms. Reed said, “It was all disappointing.”

The couple ended the night wondering how the costly programs each candidate supported — Mr. Trump’s tariffs and Ms. Harris’s aid to young families and small businesses — would help a couple like them, living on a fixed income that has not kept pace with inflation. They said they didn’t hear detailed answers on immigration or foreign policy, either.

Tuesday night was the first time any voter had seen Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris together. The two candidates had never met in person before, creating considerable trepidation among supporters of both campaigns about how they might perform.

Immediate reaction from political analysts favored Ms. Harris, whose attacks appeared to rattle Mr. Trump. She goaded him over the various criminal and civil charges against him. She said his former aides considered him “a disgrace” and that world leaders laugh at him. At one point, she asked whether he might be “confused” — a stinging line given Mr. Trump’s relentless mocking of President Biden’s mental acuity. And she questioned his emotional stability by saying he was not capable of processing his loss in 2020.

But not all voters, especially those undecided few who could sway the election, were effusive about the vice president’s performance.

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