As all eyes turn to Philadelphia for the first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, Temple RISE is holding a watch party for all Temple students and community members to attend.
Temple RISE, an organization with that aims to uplift student voices in swing states, is hosting its watch party at Craft Hall. The event will kick off at 7:30 p.m. and wrap up at 10 p.m.
Follow this page for live updates as events from the watch party unfold.
Live Updates
11:12p.m. EST — And thanks to everyone who followed TTN’s crosstown travels throughout the night. More to come, certainly.
11:11p.m. EST — And that’s a wrap. RISE leaders are boxing up refreshments and heading for the door, bartenders are stealing sideways glances at the stragglers, and NBC’s debate coverage has gone local. Big thanks to everyone who concerned themselves with the political temperature at a Northern Liberties food hall for the last two hours.
11:08p.m. EST — Zenia Mitchell, another health sciences major, has only recently gotten interested in politics — an interest that accelerated, she said, when Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Trump atop the ticket. And Mitchell says she got the sense her home community, Harlem, has become more invested, too.
Still, Mitchell appreciated that the moderators held the new nominee accountable — it helped answer many of her own questions. “You were saying this, now you’re saying this,” she said of Harris. “Why?”
11:02p.m. EST — Junior health sciences major Kiera Gabriel says Harris got her interested in the election — when the choice was between presidents Biden and Trump, she said, “I’m not going to lie — I was shaking in my boots.”
Having a younger candidate to take on Trump — “you know, someone who can string sentences together” — gave Gabriel hope. She expected Harris to “eat Trump up” tonight, and she felt the vice president delivered.
10:45p.m. EST — Went to a Brandi Carlile concert at the Mann a few years ago and the verdict among friends was that it could have been far more powerful, were it 30 minutes shorter. Frankly, the same sentiment seems to persist here — many viewers at Craft Hall have had trouble staying locked in, and RISE’s Jada Wilson said “both candidates veered off-topic quite a bit.”
10:32p.m. EST — People are tuning out — eyes cast phoneward, lips pressed to their drinks — as Harris and Trump spar over the GOP’s fruitless dozen-year crusade against the Affordable Care Act.
10:25p.m. EST — Harris appears to have pulled off a feat straight out of a Percival Everett novel. In relitigating Trump’s latesummer racial smear, she managed to not mention that she herself is the first Black woman to receive a major party nomination.
10:23p.m. EST — “I don’t care,” Trump practically spits, asked about his bizarre July sidewinder on Harris’s racial identity. “I don’t care what she is.”
10:16p.m. EST — Putin, Harris tells Trump, “would eat you for lunch” — prompting a chorus of hoots and thinly-muffled DAYUMs from inside the Hall.
10:14p.m. EST — “You’re not running against Joe Biden,” Harris responded. “You’re running against me.” Eyes are back on the screen.
10:13p.m. EST — Trump, asked whether it was in the U.S.’s best interest for Ukraine to win the war, appeared to dip into conspiracy theories from the dusty corners of the Web questioning whether incumbent president Joe Biden is… uh… (checks notes)… still alive.
10:11p.m. EST — Whoever’s in charge cut the audio while someone stood in the middle of the floor and read some sort of spiel off of white letterhead. When the sound returned, Trump was hissing about the origins of the Russia-Ukraine war.
10:08p.m. EST — Temple student Dewanna London said she was glad the moderators fact-checked the candidates’ claims this time around — and indicated that, while debating a former prosecutor 22 years his junior, he looked every one of his 78 years.“Frankly,” London said, “he’s senile.”
10:04p.m. EST — The crowd looked ready to zone out until the “sorority party” line, at which point their attention was briefly buoyed.
9:52p.m. EST — Heck, even one of the bartenders was transfixed — and he had a drink in his hand.
9:52p.m. EST — The sound briefly died down from bar to door as Harris held forth on the potential consequences of a second Trump term.
9:48p.m. EST — Trump, under pressure over January 6, is now yelling into the microphone about the aftermath as he attempts to downplay his role.
9:44p.m. EST — Junior marketing major Zandria Edghill-Dowdy has been taking Apple Notes throughout the night. “It was outright racist,” she said of the dog exchange between Trump and Muir — and she added that Trump seemed to be running in circles, deflecting from the issues.
9:37p.m. EST — “I think this is rich,” Harris says, on crime, “coming from someone who has been prosecuted…”The rest was inaudible — the crowd said “ooooooooh” nearly in unison.
9:34p.m. EST — Phillies win. Hat man hasn’t been watching for some time, and is leaning nearly across the bar as the candidates go at it over immigration.
9:33p.m. EST — …And we’ve arrived at the part of the night where Trump accuses immigrants of kidnapping and munching on dogs in the streets of Springfield, Oh., a charge city leaders say is false.
9:30p.m. EST — Hooting, hollering, gasps and cackles as Harris accuses Trump’s rallies of being incoherent, rambling, inane — and boring, a charge at which the former president actually looked a little wounded.
9:26p.m. EST — With the Rays game now well in hand, even diners in Phillies hats are turning their attention to the big screens.
9:23p.m. EST — You know that scene in Rocky IV where Drago takes a cheap shot and both corners clear out? Harris and Trump going toe-to-toe on abortion isn’t that. But the mood — in-studio and in-hall — has shifted.
9:21p.m. EST — The hall finally erupts as Welker rebuffs Trump on abortion: “There is no state where it is legal to kill a baby after birth.”“THANK YOU!” Hollers someone below the screen. “THANK YOU!”
9:18p.m. EST — It’s hard to tell what’s more contentious — this debate or the brief confrontation between Bryce Harper and the entire Rays bench, playing in HD on a single screen in the corner of the Craft Hall’s bar setup.
9:16p.m. EST — Still little more than a collective murmur in an increasingly-crowded Craft Hall as Trump and Harris bicker over tariffs. Though Trump’s line, “I ought to send her a MAGA hat,” drew guffaws from the edge of the bar.
9:11p.m. EST — And speaking of nonpartisanship, viewers have been on-brand to this point. Neither candidate’s remarks have drawn much in the way of applause — even as the room has grown full.
9:08p.m. EST — The Republican nominee for vice president, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, rose to national prominence as author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” effectively a memoir about how access to education lifted him out of poverty in rural Ohio.
“It’s really empowering to see that no matter how many different paths people have had to get into those halls of power or getting them to be community leaders, a lot of them have come to the same conclusion that we have,” said RISE state deputy director Jackson Moffett. He demurred on the question of the GOP’s evolution.
8:33p.m. EST — Most of the debate-watchers at Craft Hall are seated towards the building’s entrance, beneath the most gargantuan of several screens rolling a kind of pre-show from NBC.
8:16p.m. EST — Festivities getting under way at Craft Hall, with refreshments being handed out to Temple RISE guests.
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