The Campaigns Need Younger People to Vote. Did the V.P. Debate Help?

In the pivotal battleground of Wisconsin, where presidential elections are won or lost by only tens of thousands of votes, students like those at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside are highly sought after.

But getting young people interested in voting has always been a tall order. And on Tuesday night, that job did not get any easier after the vice-presidential debate between Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.

“This is long, huh?” Grant Pitts, a senior who is president of the Parkside student government, said to a room full of students who groaned in agreement.

Debates between vice-presidential candidates are usually low-impact events, even if they can deliver a memorable moment once a decade or so, like Sarah Palin’s wink to the camera in 2008 or Lloyd Bentsen’s humbling of Dan Quayle in 1988.

Tuesday night did not deliver one of those moments, at least to students at three colleges in the closely contested swing states of Wisconsin and Georgia. Some students, jaded with politics altogether, seemed to have decided well before the debate that it would not be must-see TV. Many said they had already settled on a candidate, and that there was little either Mr. Vance or Mr. Walz could say to change their minds.

At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, only a handful of people showed up for a watch party at the student union that had been advertised online and in the school newspaper well before Tuesday.

“No one around here seems to be into politics, and those who are probably made up their minds a long time ago,” said Jade Rahn, a 19-year-old sophomore who will be voting in her first presidential election in November. As she watched from a mostly empty student lounge where a table of snacks sat mostly untouched, Ms. Rahn said she has been leaning toward Mr. Trump because she believes he handled economic issues better.

And while she remains somewhat receptive to switching candidates, nothing she heard at the debate moved her much. “I’m open,” Ms. Rahn said, taking an occasional break from the debate to finish some homework. “But don’t think anything said during this debate will change my mind.”

Younger voters present a challenge for the campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump. Many say they are disillusioned by the negativity of American politics and doubt that any candidate can help put the country — and their lives — back on track. They came of age in an era when problems such as climate change and mass shootings overwhelmed many in their generation, and the American political system seemed unable to do anything to fix them.

Ethan Hightire, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said he was not even aware of the vice-presidential debate until a day ago. He came to watch with his classmates hoping to hear from the candidates themselves, instead of relying on a news media that he believes is not telling the full story.

“It’s hard to take a stance because most of the information online and in the news is biased,” Mr. Hightire said. “I think it’s better to hear directly from them.”

But even that may not be enough for Mr. Hightire to make a decision with confidence because, he said, “What they say may not be what they do.”

At Mercer University in Macon, Ga., the organizers of a nonpartisan watch party weren’t quite certain how many people would show up. Three weeks earlier, a watch party for the debate between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump drew about 60 people. On Tuesday, the crowd ended up being quite a bit short of that.

Hannah Griffin, a 20-year-old premedical student who is studying biochemistry, said she yearned for an election where a vice-presidential debate would help decide her vote. But as she watched, she acknowledged that the volleys between Mr. Vance and Mr. Walz would do absolutely nothing to sway her in November.

“It is my hope that at some time in the future, we will have better candidates that aren’t Donald Trump and just so unbelievably horrible that, really, the only option, at least for me personally, is to vote for Kamala Harris,” Ms. Griffin said.

At Mercer’s student center, some paid more attention than others. And neither Mr. Vance nor Mr. Walz provoked much of a reaction from the room. With fall break looming, many students eyed the debate while doing homework or enjoying the free snacks.

For younger people who have yet to experience a presidential election as full-fledged, voting-age citizens, the debate on Tuesday offered something novel: a stage without Mr. Trump.

Ryan Rivera, a 20-year-old who works at a Target in the Phoenix area, was struck by how much Mr. Trump’s absence changed the dynamics — and felt almost pleasant. “Honestly, it’s refreshing to see two political candidates be genuinely respectful to each other,” said Mx. Rivera, who uses they/them pronouns. “We cling to the drama. It’s just nice to not have that.”

Even if some voters said they were putting a lot of weight on the vice-presidential debate, it was probably never likely to factor significantly in many minds.

The polls have remained relatively stable this year despite a torrent of history-making news that could have upended any other presidential race. These include the first criminal conviction of a former president, the late decision by a sitting president not to run for re-election and two assassination attempts against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Walz seemed to nod at one point to the fact that Americans had other things on their minds when he used his closing statement to jokingly thank “the folks who missed ‘Dancing with the Stars.’”

By the time candidates delivered their closing remarks, only two students remained at the Milwaukee watch party.

At the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, a small campus in the southeastern corner of the state with 3,200 undergraduates, the student body is more diverse than the state’s overall population. More than 35 percent of students are eligible for Pell Grants and nearly half are the first in their families to attend college. Maribel Muñoz, 18, a freshman, said she had cringed at Mr. Vance’s comments on immigration, especially when the topic of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, was raised.

“I’m the granddaughter of two immigrants,” she said.

But as unappealing as she found Mr. Vance, she said she was not sure the Democratic ticket was a much better alternative.

“I’m not sure if I will vote,” Ms. Muñoz said.

Jack Healy and Oralandar Brand-Williams contributed reporting.