The 2020 presidential candidates, Joe Biden, and the incumbent, Donald Trump, engaged in the final debate of the 2020 election season on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. This debate was much anticipated following the cancelation of the second debate, due to President Trump falling ill to Covid-19, only a few days after the first debate.

Following the debate, some Niles West students applauded the two candidates for handling this debate much better than the first one.

“Although I think you could still get a lot more content from the vice presidential debate, I think this debate was a lot more debating, and less bickering, as opposed to the first debate,” senior Imad Ahmad said.

After the first debate caused an uproar due to a seeming lack of respect from either side, and an overall lack of clarity on either side’s stances on pressing matter that voters wanted to hear, this debate sparked hope and gave clarity to voters of each candidate’s policies.

“After seeing how the first debate went, I really did not have high expectations for this one, but I was surprised to see that I could actually understand and hear what each candidate was trying to say, instead of there being constant interruptions,” junior Saira Khatoon said.

Other students felt that even though this debate was better than the last, the debates still are not providing any inside information into policies that they would like.

“I think this debate was undeniably better than the first, but I still don’t think they’re where they should be. I can never get full insight on policies from either candidate that I would like, but this debate definitely gave me more information than the first one did,” senior Aida Mehicevic said.

Students also saw that candidates both had their strong suits in this debate, where they prevailed while discussing certain topics.

“If I had to pick 2 areas where both candidates did well, I’d say that Biden did well when talking about climate change, and Trump did well when talking about crime in America,” Ahmad said.

Overall, many students were glad to see that this debate went smoother than the previous debate.

“I was just happy that this debate was so much better than the last one. There were minimal interruptions and much better answers this time around,” sophomore Arijan Dibra said.

West students recognize the importance of this election, and encourage those who are able to vote, to register, and cast their vote.

“I think this is one of the most important elections in history, and I hope that everyone who can vote does so,” senior Rabia Chaudhry said.