Much like the way college students cram for finals in the last few days of the semester, the 2024 presidential candidates are also putting in the last-minute work ahead of Election Day. For Vice President and Democratic party nominee Kamala Harris, this work included holding a town hall with undecided voters in hopes of swaying them — and the millions of people watching at home — to cast their votes for her on (or before!) Nov. 5.
The town hall, broadcast by CNN and hosted by Anderson Cooper on Oct. 23, featured a Q&A between Harris and a group of 32 undecided voters from Pennsylvania, one of the key swing states in this election. Cooper opened the event by explaining that these voters are all open to being persuaded to vote either for Harris or former President Donald Trump — who, Cooper noted, was also invited to participate in the town hall but declined, much like he did regarding a second presidential debate against Harris.
Both Harris and Trump have been campaigning nonstop in the final weeks leading up to the election, with rallies and interviews happening pretty much every day. But this town hall in particular was significant because it had *a lot* to do with college students and Gen Zers as a whole. Not only did the group of undecided voters featured at the town hall include multiple college students — as well as a college professor! — but the issues addressed during the event predominantly aligned with the issues many Gen Zers care most about when it comes to U.S. politics.
Here are some of the topics that were on these young voters’ minds — and what young voters at home can take away from Harris’s answers.
- Harris Promised To unify the politically-divided country.
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Natasha Kwiatkowski, a student at Bryn Mawr College, told CNN she’s a registered Republican but is troubled by Trump’s approach to democracy and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. During the town hall, Kwiatkowski asked Harris how she plans to create unity and bridge the political divide within the country. In response, Harris said, “I pledge to you to be a president for all Americans.”
Harris went on to speak about her career as a prosecutor, tying it back into her approach toward governing. “I have never in my career as a prosecutor asked a victim or a witness of a crime: ‘Are you a Democrat or Republican?’ The only thing I’ve ever asked is: ‘Are you OK?’ And I do believe that is what the American people deserve in their president, and not someone who makes decisions based on who voted for them, or what is in their personal interest.”
- She billed herself as the “new generation of leadership.”
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Leanne Griffiths, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, brought up the common concern, especially among young voters, that Harris’s presidency would basically just be a copy-paste of current President Joe Biden’s policy and strategy. Harris denied this. “It’s about a new approach, a new generation of leadership based on new ideas and, frankly, different experiences,” she said. “I bring a whole set of different experiences to this job, and the way I think about it, than Joe Biden.”
- Her stance on immigration was firm, but vague.
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Immigration is one of the hottest topics in the 2024 election across generations, so when Jaxon Weiss, a Drexel University student and registered Republican, asked Harris about this topic, many viewers’ ears perked up. Weiss’s question was multi-faceted, asking Harris how she plans to integrate immigrants into the U.S. safely, but also what benefits the will receive, and at what cost to U.S. taxpayers.
Harris didn’t really give a straightforward answer to this question. She did, however, call out Trump for killing a bipartisan border bill that could have helped with this issue, and shared this message: “America’s immigration system is broken, and it needs to be fixed. And it’s been broken for a long time,” she said, also adding, “Let’s just fix this thing. Let’s just fix it. Why is there any ideological perspective on — let’s just fix the problem.”
- She addressed many young voters’ concerns about the war in Gaza.
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Annalise Kean, a Democrat who was still undecided about her vote as of the town hall, asked Harris about one of the biggest geopolitical issues driving Gen Z votes: the war in Gaza. “Far too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed,” Harris said in response. “It’s unconscionable.” She went on to say that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar could be an opportunity to end the war, thus bringing Israeli hostages home and bringing about a two-state solution in which “Israel and the Palestinians, in equal measure, have security, the Palestinian people have dignity, self-determination, and the safety they so rightly deserve.”
- She denied that Trump would be a better president to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses and beyond.
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Immediately following Kean’s question about the attacks in Palestine, town hall participant Beth Samberg — another undecided Democrat — asked Harris about how she plans to protect college students and young adults from antisemitism and antisemitic violence. Harris acknowledged the rise of antisemitism as a problem that the country has to “deal with.” She then went on to call out Trump for his reported comments about Adolf Hitler. “As the president of the United States, the commander in chief, he’s saying to his generals, in essence, ‘Why can’t you be more like Hitler’s generals?’ Come on!”
When Cooper asked Harris if she thinks Trump is antisemitic, she did not answer directly, instead saying he is “a danger to the well-being and security of America.”
- She reiterated her stance one of Gen Z’s leading concerns, reproductive rights.
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Although none of the questions featured during the town hall were directly about reproductive rights — the leading concern among young voters, per multiple Her Campus surveys — Harris made sure to include the topic into her talking points, specifically appealing to those who may not support abortion but can at least agree that there needs to be real policy change to protect individuals’ bodily autonomy and safety.
“I was with Liz Cheney this week. She is unapologetically pro-life, and will also tell you that she doesn’t agree with what’s been happening,” Harris said, referencing the tragic deaths of women like Amber Nicole Thurman, who lost her life due to Georgia’s strict abortion ban. “I find that many people I’ve met who are pro-life have said to me, you know, ‘I didn’t intend that this would happen.'”
- She called Trump a fascist.
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With concerns for the future of the country’s democracy at the top of mind for many voters, Harris did not hold back on her feelings about how she thinks Trump would handle a second term. In one of the most show-stopping moments of the night, Cooper asked Harris if she thought Trump was a fascist, to which she replied, “Yes, I do.”
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