Jun. 28—When President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump squared off for Thursday night’s debate, many in Southwest Missouri were watching and grading the candidate of their choice.

Jasper County Republicans held an unofficial watch party at the Union Station Cafe, 705 Illinois Ave. About 30 people attended.

“I thought that Trump handled himself significantly better than he did in his previous run last time where he lost his cool and kind of acted the fool,” said Nate Greenes, Sarcoxie, after the watch party. “I think he handled the questions in a very put-together manner. I think he had solid answers. I noticed he managed to very deftly dodge some difficult questions. I think that was very tactful and in doing so he baited Joe into continuing the dialog away from the question that was asked so it wasn’t obvious that he didn’t answer the question because they both stayed on the alternate topic.”

“I saw that Trump didn’t take the bait when Joe was trying to bait him into getting into his old tactics like yelling and stuff like that,” added Brandi Greenes, Nate’s wife.

John Hicks, Joplin, chairman of Southwest Missouri Democrats, also tuned in.

“I don’t know that it changed a lot of people’s opinions but I think it was pretty much what I expected,” Hicks said in a telephone interview with The Globe on Friday. “President Biden was talking about administration accomplishments and former President Trump was repeating a lot of the same things he has said in previous appearances, which have all been proven to be false.”

Brian Evans, Joplin, brought his daughter, Lakyn Evans, 15, to the Republican watch party.

“Most of it I already knew,” he said. “Biden was able to talk more coherently than I thought he would, but he struggled at times.”

Evans also said he would have liked to hear more about human trafficking and drug trafficking coming across the border.

“It seems to be a growing problem,” he said. “We don’t know who is coming across the border without vetting.”

Lakyn said she would have liked to hear more about the opioid problem.

“That’s definitely a problem I feel like affects my age group and something I feel like should have been talked about more,” she said.

Some national Democrats said they were concerned about Biden’s performance in the debate and were openly talking about Biden dropping out of the race and the party finding someone new.

“I’m not the only one whose heart is breaking right now. There’s a lot of people who watched this tonight and felt terribly for Joe Biden,” Claire McCaskill, a former U.S. Senator from Missouri, said on MSNBC. “I don’t know if things can be done to fix this.”

Hicks said he thought Biden’s difficulties were mostly caused by Trump’s questionable relationship with the truth.

“If I were grading President Biden’s performance I would give him probably a ‘B,'” Hicks said. “I think that’s due in part to the fact that he’s trying to react to what his opponent is saying and when you’re dealing with someone who is not anchored in truth, it makes it kind of hard to formulate responses on the fly.”

Nate Greenes, from Sarcoxie, who was at the Republican watch party, said he found himself agreeing with Biden’s plan to keep Social Security financially viable in the future by removing the cap that blocks wealthier people from paying Social Security taxes on incomes over $168,600. However, that wasn’t enough to change his vote.

“I think that is actually a solid plan,” he said. “I’m not a fan of Joe but I’m also intellectually honest and when someone is right, they’re right. I have to give him credit there, he was on point with that one.”

Hicks a;sp said he was concerned about whether Trump would accept the election results if he lost.

“Former President Trump said last night and has said previously that he would be willing to respect the results of the election in November if he felt it was fair and honest,” Hicks said. “I’d like to know, does he define a fair and honest election as only one that results in a Trump victory? If he loses the election, will he again claim that it was unfair?”