On Thursday night, televisions at a sports bar in Santa Monica, a pizza restaurant in Irvine and a dive bar in Downtown L.A. were tuned not to a baseball game but rather the presidential debate.
Southern Californians gathered to watch President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump go head-to-head in the first debate of the 2024 general election. They wanted to hear about climate, abortion and immigration from the White House contenders, many said. But voters in both parties left concerned about how both men appeared during the debate, and whether they answered the questions posed to them.
Just short of four dozen people — a pretty even mix of older and younger, men and women — gathered on the patio of Sgt. Pepperoni’s Pizza Store. Irvine is reliably blue, and those who turned out to watch the debate were there to cheer on Biden.
The watch party was hosted by the Democrats of Greater Irvine, the city’s first and largest chartered Democratic club.
Meanwhile, some 45 miles northwest in Santa Monica, about 100 Trump supporters gathered at Busby’s in Santa Monica over burgers and beers at an event organized by the Santa Monica Republican Women Federated.
Donna Block said she was shocked, but pleased, that Biden agreed to the debate, saying it will give the public an important look at his mental fitness.
“I think even in the long haul, liberals will see that this man is not fit to be in office,” she said.
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Block said she was most looking forward to hearing the candidates debate immigration, adding that she’s been unhappy with Biden’s border policy. The cause was also important to others in the room, which exploded into applause when Trump vowed to reseal the border and loudly booed when Biden spoke about his approach to immigration.
How the presidential candidates handle the ongoing Israel-Hamas war was an important point for voters at both parties.
Shawn Mehr, an Iranian Jew who fled to America during the revolution, said he believes Trump will take a stronger stance against antisemitism and called him “the most pro-Israel president since the birth of Israel.”
Meanwhile, in Irvine, watch party attendees were gathered in the Campus Plaza adjacent to UC Irvine, the site of the arrest of 47 protesters and the clearing of a Gaza Solidarity Encampment in May. They greeted each other by saying, “Free Palestine.”
Irvine is among Orange County’s three most populous cities — the others being Anaheim and Santa Ana — that cast the most votes for Biden in the primary.
That sentiment was well-represented in the shirts worn by several attendees, which had messages ranging from “Biden-Harris 2024” to “No, really, he lost and you’re in a cult,” alluding to Trump’s loss in 2020 and the election denialism that followed.
Longtime Irvine resident and Democratic voter Kathy Orlinsky, who said she’ll be voting for Biden, said she doesn’t think Trump believes in anything other than himself. The reason why he denied the 2020 election, she said, was because “democracy wasn’t in his favor.”
“If democracy was in his favor, he would like it,” said Orlinsky. She said the No. 1 reason why she likes Biden is because of his strong support of climate-friendly initiatives, including his commitment to cut greenhouse gases by at least 50% by 2030, expanding sales of electric vehicles and reducing pollution.
But it’s not just climate for Orlinsky.
“He’s done student loan forgiveness, lowered the cost of prescription drugs and helped veterans,” she said. “I’d like to see more of that.”
Sky Fish, 21, said support for LGBTQ+ communities and abortion are two of the most important things he wants to hear about throughout the 2024 campaign cycle. Trump, he said, stands on the side opposite to what he supports.
“When Trump was president, he banned transgender troops from serving, he proposed a ban on youth transgender gender-affirming care,” Fish said. “I believe that Trump could appoint justices who could overturn Obergefell.”
Obergefell v. Hodges, which Fish was referring to, is a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court decided that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right.
Besides Biden’s support for LGBTQ+ communities and abortion rights, Fish, who is a student at Orange Coast College, said he likes that the Bidens are big supporters of community colleges and student loan forgiveness.
Most Americans planned to tune into the debate, or at least part of it, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
At a dive bar in downtown L.A., a dozen people sat around the dimly lit bar, the two televisions hoisted in each corner tuned to CNN rather than the usual baseball game. Regulars at Hank’s Bar, who organized the watch party, played “debate Bingo,” ate pizza and watched Biden and Trump square off.
“I will admit, Biden appears to be stumbling, much like Trump, however, Biden answers the questions whereas Trump offers a rebuttal to previous questions rather than answering the question at hand,” said Mark Trankle.
Meanwhile, in Irvine, Adam Mercado, a registered Republican who described himself as a moderate conservative, said the event was a “sibling date” with his sister. He said he supported former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the primary and agreed with a lot of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ policies, but he’ll be sitting out this election.
“My vote doesn’t matter in California,” Mercado said. And the debate, he said, didn’t have any “groundbreaking movement” or in-depth policy conversations, but nothing that was said would sway either base.
Thursday’s showdown between Biden and Trump was the earliest presidential debate in U.S. history. Technically neither candidate is their party’s official nominee quite yet.
There were some familiar California faces in the post-debate spin room, where surrogates meet with reporters to tout their candidate’s success. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been expanding his national profile in recent years, was on-hand for the Biden campaign as was Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach.
After the debate, Huntington Beach Councilmember Tony Strickland, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign in Orange County, said, “Biden looked confused, he doesn’t look like he’s fit to be president currently and I wouldn’t be surprised if Democrats tried to replace him based on his performance tonight.”
Kaitlyn Schallhorn and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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