Voters across metro Atlanta weigh in on landmark Harris-Trump presidential debate
This story was updated on Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 11:14 a.m.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump met face-to-face for the first time ever on Tuesday night at a high-stakes election debate that drew the attention of voters in Georgia and across the country.
The often-contentious 90-minute debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, covered issues like the economy, immigration, abortion, the 2020 election and ensuing 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, student loan debt, the Israel-Hamas war, the war in Ukraine, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, race, healthcare and the environment.
The 2020 Georgia election interference case against Trump in Fulton County came up briefly in the debate as well, with Trump name-checking Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis. While guns garnered a brief mention, the Sept. 4 mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, did not.
The debate occurred with just days until the first absentee ballots will be sent, just over a month until the start of early voting and 56 days until Election Day.
WABE’s Rahul Bali, Sam Gringlas and Brendan Rivers reported from local watch parties for Harris and Trump, as well as from the Dunwoody home of an undecided voter.
A large and diverse group of Trump supporters gathered to watch the presidential debate in Wallace Hall, a large event space lined with taxidermied animal heads on the second floor of Adventure Outdoors — a massive gun store in Smyrna.
Before the debate started, attendees watched Fox News on a large projector screen, ate barbecue and drank tea, lemonade, beer and wine as guns being fired on the shooting range below their feet made the floor audibly rattle.
There was some laughter as Trump jabbed at Harris but supporters mostly cheered the former president and groaned as Harris spoke.
Tiana Robinson volunteered for the Barack Obama campaign but she says she flipped to Trump because “nothing happened” during Obama’s two terms on what he said he stood for.
“I wasn’t a Trumpster, and I started listening to him and I had an open mind and I switched,” she said. “The first four years: amazing. The economy was great, everything was thriving. As soon as [Biden and Harris] got into the administration… wah wah.”
At a Harris campaign debate watch party at Atlanta’s Tara Theatre, the crowd often laughed at Trump, including when he falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating pets. Ensuing reactions ranged from yelling at the screen to cheering for Harris for her reactions.
Wearing a custom Harris jacket, Atlanta resident Tori Syles said she felt pride watching the vice president.
“She stayed on script, she talked about policy,” she said. “It wasn’t about he shoulda-coulda-woulda, it was about what I will do for the American people.”
Harris campaign volunteer Brandon Haynes says Harris was “looking great.”
“She’s just holding him accountable for all of the lies he is spewing all night,” he said.
It’s a critical election year, and Georgia is at the center of it. Stay in the know with WABE’s 2024 Georgia Elections page, where you can find WABE’s latest election news and podcast episodes, important dates, voting locations, candidate info, results and more.
Georgia voter Cameron Lewellen watched Tuesday’s debate from his basement in a Dunwoody subdivision. He voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
In 2022, he voted for Republican Brian Kemp over Democrat Stacey Abrams for governor, and for Democrat Raphael Warnock over Republican Herschel Walker for U.S. Senate.
Lewellen soured on Trump, especially after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. But he says he is uncomfortable with how the Democratic Party elevated Harris without voters weighing in during a primary.
“She didn’t earn my vote. She was basically anointed because she was the vice president,” he said.
Lewellen said that going into the debate, he felt like he wanted to see Harris make the case for why she should get his vote beyond casting Trump as a threat to democracy.
He kept a tally of how often Trump and Harris mentioned policy vs. personal attacks during the debate. Lewellen was particularly tuned into the candidates’ answers on abortion, democracy and the economy.
He says he came away from the debate encouraged by Harris’ proposals to build several hundred thousand new homes and offer tax incentives for starting a small business. And he was reminded of Trump’s response on Jan. 6.
“As I think about it, it makes me angry because I think that’s crap,” Lewellen said. “Take responsibility.”
He says that while he went into the debate leaning toward Trump, he’s now more likely to vote for Harris. But he says if the economy takes a turn for the worse this fall, he will reevaluate.
The deadline to register to vote in Georgia in time to vote in this year’s election is Oct. 7. Early voting begins on Oct. 15 and ends on Nov. 1.
Election Day is Nov. 5.
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