Undecided Americans impressed by Harris – did debate shift their votes?

Ana Faguy & Rachel Looker

BBC News Washington

With only weeks left until the US presidential election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in a battle to win the support of those who are yet to commit to either candidate.

The BBC has spoken to eight undecided voters who saw Tuesday night’s 90-minute debate as being crucial in working out who to pick in November’s ballot.

Vanessa was leaning towards voting for Trump before the debate started and is still leaning that way, but was impressed with Harris’s performance.

I don’t think the debate changed my opinion on voting for Trump, but I definitely am less fearful if [Harris] wins because I think she can handle herself and debate well.

I’m overall unchanged, but I like her better now.

I lost a lot of faith in the Democratic Party when they told us Joe Biden was fine, and then it turns out he’s not, and so it’s hard to trust that same administration going forward.

I do not want to vote for Trump, but I do not like this current administration. I won’t change my mind before November, I’d just be less worried if she were to win.

Jeremy doesn’t like Trump and didn’t vote Democrat in 2016 or 2020, but after tonight’s debate says he will be voting for Harris.

Tonight was the first night where genuinely, I would say I felt, like, scared at the prospect of a second Trump presidency.

His answers where he would fearmonger about immigrants killing dogs, fearmonger about World War III multiple times. Every time he spoke, it was frightening to a level that I have not felt from him before.

And while I don’t love Harris, and I think she’s very wishy-washy, she does not pose an existential threat to America like he does.

Tracy watched the debate but remains undecided over who she will vote for.

I thought both candidates spoke fairly well, but I thought Kamala answered more of the questions than Trump did.

I had never really seen anything about [Harris] so I was looking for basically an opinion on her. So I was rather pleased with some of what she had to say and actually what ex-President Trump had to say, but I get a very shifty vibe from him.

I don’t trust [Trump]. I don’t think he wants to run the country, I think he wants to own the country.

Mat was considering skipping the election all together, but after the debate he says he has made up his mind.

The debate was something.

Kamala Harris definitely did very well. I think Trump kind of did not. He lost his focus and kept rambling on where it was kind of incoherent.

After last night, I think I’ll vote for Kamala Harris. I don’t know if I’ll be very enthusiastic about it but I will probably be voting for her.

There’s still a little bit of time until November, but she very likely has my vote.

Kimberly hasn’t been attracted to either of the major party candidates, but after the debate she is leaning towards supporting Harris.

If I could vote for no one, I probably would do that. I want to get the full facts before I do anything.

[I was] not impressed with Trump, I won’t be voting for him.

William thought the debate conveyed a clear picture of both candidates, but says he is leaning towards Harris after watching.

Trump was all over the place. He was lured into a lot of questions that he should have answered perfectly like immigration and abortion, but he was caught off guard with statements about crowd size, which was really revealing.

I felt like Kamala was far more prepared for this than Donald Trump.

I personally want to see her in more one-on-one interviews after this, this is the first time I’m seeing her without Tim Walz and she did fine, in my opinion.

If she went out there more, spoke to the nation one-on-one more, she’d receive my vote at that point.

Rohan remains undecided, but says after the debate he’s 51% for Harris and 49% for Trump. Still, he says, there’s still time for that to change.

The debate did very little to change my perspective of Trump. This was more an audition for Kamala Harris to just kind of see who she is, where she stands on policies and her command of the stage.

She came across pretty rehearsed to me, but she dropped a lot of, sort of, baited statements that I think Trump bit on really hard – rattled him a bit, made him pretty angry.

All of this seemed pretty calculated to me, and that’s not exactly what I was looking for out of her. I was looking for her to be a little more personable, a little more natural.

Chance wasn’t very impressed with the debate performances and still remains undecided.

I didn’t feel like the topics were discussed in depth, it was mostly the candidates talking at each other.

I was disappointed, really.

I personally wished they would go in depth about their policy, instead of attacking the other person for something about their policy.

I’m personally not a fan of either of them, but if I was going to choose one or the other, I would probably choose Harris.

John Sudworth contributed to this report.

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