'Painful': Swing state voters react to Biden-Trump presidential debate

WASHINGTON – A voter in Nevada compared President Joe Biden’s performance to elder abuse.

A voter in Georgia was so disgusted with what he was hearing from the Democratic incumbent and former President Donald Trump that he quit watching, walked to a liquor store and bought a six-pack of beer.

Another voter in Wisconsin called it “a painful experience.”

Americans reacted to the first presidential debate of 2024 with a mix of exhaustion, trepidation and disgust.

The face-off between the current president and his predecessor was the earliest televised debate in American history, taking place before either man is officially declared their party's candidate at the national party conventions.

Biden and Trump spent 90 minutes on stage in Atlanta answering questions posed by moderators from CNN and trading insults, at times in the most personal of terms.

“You have the morals of an alley cat,” Biden told Trump, citing the former president’s sexual escapade with former porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump called Biden “the worst president in history” and kept referring to his opponent as a liar who is unable to tell the truth.

"You’re a whiner,” Biden told Trump, referring to his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. “You can’t stand loss. Something snapped in you when you lost last time."

Trump said the United States has become “like a Third World nation” under Biden and said what he has done to the country “is absolutely criminal.”

Near the end of the debate, the two candidates even sparred over their golf scores.

"Let's not act like children," Trump said.

“You are a child,” Biden shot back.

Reporters for USA TODAY's network partners interviewed swing-state residents shortly after the debate ended to see how they thought each candidate fared.

Here’s what they said:

'Good luck, America': Debate solidifies voter concerns in Wisconsin

Voters attending a debate watch party in Wisconsin’s liberal bastion, the capital city of Madison, lamented the choice in front of them.

Noah Anders, 24, grimaced when asked what he thought about the debate.

"It was a painful experience to sit through,” Anders said. “Neither candidate inspires our country.”

Anders, who will soon start law school at the University of Wisconsin, said the debate left him with concerns about Biden’s cognitive abilities but that he also questions Trump’s mental acuity.

"To be president you deal with a lot of tough issues, and I don't know if they have the ability to navigate the nuance and hardships of the job," he said. "Good luck, America."

Timothy Sanders, 48, said despite the president’s shaky performance, he is still optimistic about Biden. But he acknowledged the president didn't sound as crisp at a time that optics could be important to the election.

"I'm not concerned at all about his age,” he said. “If you had a grandpa who took you fishing and had a stutter, you would still trust him. You wouldn't put him in a debate on live television if you could avoid that because that's entertainment. That's not fair."

Sanders vowed to campaign for Biden because he doesn't want to see Trump elected again.

"I think we're in a very dangerous place," he said.

Jesse Clingan, 42, a construction worker from Milwaukee, also wasn’t pleased with the Biden-Trump matchup.

"It's kind of picking the worst of two evils,” Clingan said. “I resent having to choose one of them. But at the end of the day, I’d rather have (Biden) on his worst day than Trump at all."

Arizona voters close ranks around preferred candidate

In Arizona, reaction to the debate reflected the wide partisan divide and rancor that has characterized the race so far.

At pro-Biden and pro-Trump debate watch parties in the Phoenix metro area, attendees closed ranks around their candidate and criticized the other as a liar or worse.

Trump fans ridiculed Biden over his age. During the debate, several watch party attendees yelled “He’s going to poop his pants!” in reference to Biden's age.

At the halftime mark in the debate, Angela DiLiberto, 51, of Phoenix, said Trump was smoking Biden.

"I want Trump to say 'Putting him out on a stage like this is cruel,'" she said, commenting on his age.

Her friend, Ann Campbell, 69, of Phoenix, said she is concerned about Biden's age.

"It’s sad to me because I have elderly parents and he needs to be home," she said.

Amelia Gallitano, a 58-year-old Phoenix resident, defended Biden’s performance at the CNN presidential debate.

“I appreciate that he’s gone on the attack, I appreciate that he’s calling out lies, calling Trump a liar and not buckling and only acting on the defensive,” Gallitano said at a pro-Biden watch party.

When asked about Biden’s fitness heading into the election, she deemed it a difficult situation, but also highlighted both candidates' advanced ages.

“People give Trump a pass for that," Gallitano said. “Really what it comes down to is what are the potential consequences of them running the country. Biden’s done a great job, and Trump was a disaster.”

With age and fitness for office being a large issue for many voters heading into November, Harvey Bryan, 75, of Tempe, noted some issue with both candidates.

“Both are a little older than I am, and I can tell you, there’s issues there when you get to my age,” Bryan said.

'We want real solutions': Voter in Nevada doubts debate will change minds

In Nevada, Reno Republican Nicol Herris said she felt like the country was lost while watching the presidential debate.

“My dad used to tell me to understand how a company is doing, look at its leadership,” she said. “And now we have President Biden looking like this? It’s elder abuse. Trying to follow his mumblings was hard."

Herris said she doesn't think the debate is going to change people's minds. “I believe that people are sick and tired of what's happening, and we want real solutions," she said.

Reno is in Washoe County, the most swing county in one of the nation’s most swing states. At a watch party hosted by the Democratic Party, an audience of about 60 booed and often shouted “Answer the question” whenever Trump spoke.“He can’t stick to a subject,” Allyson Ford said. “He’s just rambling, he can’t focus, he can’t answer a question that’s posed to him. He’s just throwing out accusations, many of which have already been disproved many times.”

Kim Bacchus was pleased that the Trump she wanted to see in the debate was the one who showed up.

“I thought Trump dominated,” the Reno Republican said. “He looked physically healthy, and he was very focused, very sharp, very informed, assertive, confident. I thought he was very much in control of the debates.”

'They weren't trying to inform us': Georgia voters dismayed by both candidates

On Georgia Tech’s campus in Atlanta, where the debate was held, local residents expressed dismay at the performance of both candidates.

Nathan Cox, a recent college graduate, said he found the debate “upsetting” and stopped listening when the candidates began discussing Ukraine and Israel. He instead went to the nearby liquor store to grab a six-pack of beer.

“It was like a foreign policy mush, and those are issues that really matter to me because I’m scared of the implications of them,” Cox said. “I’m scared of escalation with Russia. I’m scared of ending support to Ukraine, which I’m afraid might happen under a Republican administration. I’m scared of what’s happening to the Palestinians. I don’t think it’s in any way fair to the civilians who have been killed.”

While he said he believes another Trump presidency would do more harm than good, Cox said Biden's foreign policy decisions have been disappointing. “I’m upset because [Biden] is somebody I would have voted for,” he said.

Georgia Tech student Stephen Viray also stopped watching the debate early, expressing disappointment with the content of the discussion.

“I feel like they were ignoring so many questions,” Viray said. “I didn’t get the answers I really wanted. Honestly, that’s kind of what I expected though. With these candidates, I don’t really know if we have a great choice.”

Like Cox, he expressed a sense of dissatisfaction with the two candidates.

“It was all just a political play,” he said. “They weren’t trying to inform us, to be honest. They were just trying to get us to not vote for the other person.”

Zachary Elis, another Georgia Tech student, said the debate reinforced his concerns about Biden’s competence to hold office for another term.

“I came into this thing supporting Donald Trump, just based on the fact that I’m concerned about Joe Biden’s ability to keep leading the county for the next four years,” Elis said. “I think I left this debate with that worry confirmed.”

'Same old schtick': Pennsylvania voters disappointed by debate

Philip Seaver-Hall, a 28-year-old attorney and the president of the Erie County Young Democrats, felt exhausted after watching another debate featuring Trump.

"I feel fatigued, and I feel distressed that Donald Trump has gotten as far as he has after all that he has done," he said.

Biden won on substance, Seaver-Hall said. The president needed to prove he could "drop the gloves and play hardball. And I think he did that."

Seaver-Hall said he thought Biden's strongest exchange was when he defended U.S. service members from remarks Trump reportedly made in 2018 during a trip to France, calling American soldiers "suckers" and "losers."

"I think he did better than a lot of Americans probably expected he would," he said of Biden. "He was spouting facts left and right. Meanwhile, Trump was spouting lies left and right. Look, we know who Joe Biden is. We know that he's struggled with a stutter for his entire life. We know that he's an octogenarian. Those aren't surprises to anybody."

Scott Elper, 30, grew up just outside Harrisburg, the state capital in central Pennsylvania, and previously worked landscaping and other blue-collar jobs before his current position working in a credit union.

Elper didn’t vote in the 2020 election. But the “very progressive” Democrat said he was voting for Biden in November and the debate didn’t sway him.

“There is only one candidate I align with,” Elper said.

While Biden seemed to “freeze up” at times throughout the debate, Elper said that could have been a coping mechanism for a disability he and Biden share — a stutter.

Overall, Elper said he wasn’t too impressed with the debate and didn’t think it would have much of an impact on voters.

“It was the same old schtick from both sides, honestly,” he said. “I am kind of disappointed that Biden kept getting swept into (Trump’s) madness.”

In southeastern Pennsylvania, former Warminster Township supervisor and retired drywall installer Mark McKee has thrown his support behind Trump since 2016 and plans to vote for him again in November.

McKee, 58, said he believed Trump’s performance in the 2020 debate cost him that election. On Thursday night, the Bucks County resident said he saw a more composed candidate.

“I think that overall Trump won this debate hands down. (Biden) looked frail and confused and that was after five days of debate prep,” McKee said.

McKee said the debate covered most of the important issues to him, though he would have liked to have heard more on the economy and felt discussion on crime was scant.

“I was disappointed that the crime issue wasn’t addressed. Perhaps in the next debate,” McKee said.

Biden and Trump are set to square off again September 10.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Swing state voters have intense reaction to first presidential debate