Tuesday’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump was as widely anticipated in some D.C. neighborhoods as a championship game. So, residents took to bars, cafes and campus centers to watch and fend off nerves with a drink or two in hand and sympathetic ears nearby.
On Tuesday, students at Howard University were eager to get a look at Harris, one of their graduates, on the stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Dirty Water, a bar in the H Street Corridor that typically hosts Boston sports fans, partnered with the D.C. Young Republicans to air the proceedings.
Before the debate began, Anaya Brodie stood outside a ballroom at Howard, handing out a stack of small sheets of paper printed with the “debate bingo” that she created. Bingo players crossed off squares for moments during the debate, such as when Project 2025 came up. There were squares for throwing insults, rolling eyes, Trump saying “wrong” or Harris giggling.
“Some people celebrate the Super Bowl, but it’s Howard. So, like, the debate kind of feels that way,” Brodie, 17, said.
The crowd in the ballroom quickly grew so big that organizers had to open a second space to broadcast the debate. Many students were locked into the policy points, listening closely to the back-and-forth. Others sat with notebooks and laptops open, finishing homework and catching up for class.
The audience cheered for what they saw as moments of victory for Harris, snapping their fingers and nodding heads in agreement. They jeered at points they disagreed with.
Brodie, wrapped in a white blanket, sat on the floor at the front. She said she was feeling a bit more optimistic about the election after Harris joined the race and checks the polls nearly every day. She even saw Harris on campus during welcome week.
The freshman says she’s excited about the possibility of the first Black woman president.
“I wanted to be the first Black woman president, but that seems too stressful,” Brodie said. “So, I’ll let Kamala have it.”
Trey Jones, an 18-year-old freshman, said he was excited to see someone who could “finally stop Trump.” He said Harris is an inspiring candidate, and he loves her connection to Howard. It’s cool to know that she lived in the same dorms that students do today and spent time on the same campus, he said.
“The parties after she wins are going to be fun,” Jones said. “We will be partying day and night.”
At the Dirty Water bar, Toby Keith, Shaboozey and other country singers were blaring over speakers as patrons sipped their drinks.
One of the attendees was seeking public office himself and courting votes. Ciprian Ivanof, the Republican candidate for D.C.’s shadow representative, sat in the corner of the second-story bar. He was there during the debate in June between Trump and President Joe Biden, and he said he felt it was important to show up again.
“Republicans are highly isolated in D.C.,” Ivanof, 36, said. The resident of the Chevy Chase neighborhood sensed the shift in feelings around the election and said that Harris seemed “much more cognitively capable than Biden, but she seems to have public speaking problems.”
The largely male crowd remained relatively sedate when Trump and Harris jousted on abortion and women’s reproductive rights. Those seated at the bar looked at each other incredulously when moderator Linsey Davis fact-checked Trump’s claim that some Democratic leaders supported legislation that allows abortions in later stages of pregnancy or even “probably after birth.”
Some of the loudest hoots and hollers of the night at Dirty Water came on the issue of border security, immigration and Trump citing the assassination attempt on his life. Attendees gathered on the patio and along a rooftop deck broke out in laughter when Harris was questioned on the changes in her policy positions.
Toward the end of the debate, John Logan turned to his friends near the bar and muttered, “She won.” Logan, a field director for U.S. Senate candidate Larry Hogan (R), wanted to be among other Republican friends. But the self-described “Massachusetts Republican” was in the minority among the pro-Trump crowd.
“I think we should all be relieved that someone with such candor and someone with such ability to unite people with the way that she speaks has won,” Logan, 26, said. “I think that’s a big step forward for where we could be going as a country.”
Logan echoed his boss’s stance as a voice of moderation within his party. “I think a lot of Republicans feel the way I feel,” Logan said. “But they feel like they’re constrained by the fact that Trump has a very, you know, committed base.”
Back at Howard, Jasmyn Gore-Roberts, 18, couldn’t help but think about what makes someone a good leader as she watched the debate. When Harris spoke about lifting people up instead of tearing people down, Gore-Roberts, who is enrolled in a leadership class this semester, opened the notes app on her phone and jotted it down. The moment, she said, was inspirational.
“I just live, laugh, love her,” Gore-Roberts said.
Brodie said she thought Harris did very well but found the debate to be quite predictable.
Predictable enough that she hit bingo three times.