Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump squared off in their first presidential debate that a group of young voters described as a hearty win for Harris, but with Trump still not in the rearview mirror.

GBH News convened a panel of seven Gen Z voters, six of whom had been previously featured in the Politics IRL video series, to share their thoughts and reactions immediately after the debate ended on Tuesday night.

The group included Democrat, Republican, progressive and leftist voters. Here’s what they had to say:

Harris won, but she lacked on progressive policy

Both 22-year-old Democrat Audrey Grant and 21-year-old progressive Clyve Lawrence said Harris provided a fresh perspective in comparison to Trump’s same playbook.

“Harris was able to, in many ways, bait Trump into taking certain points and then kind of rambling on them,” Lawrence said.

Luke McCarthy, a 20-year-old leftist said Harris was much stronger than Biden was in any debate, and 20-year-old Democrat Abigail Meyers simply said, “I didn’t feel like I was totally dreading watching this.”

While Grant said Harris “blew it out of the park,” and provided poise, she added that embracing more progressive policies would benefit the Vice President.

“I think that it does the Democrats a disservice to refuse to engage with quote unquote progressive policies, when in actuality those policies are incredibly popular...I’m just really frustrated as a young Democrat to continually say...we are more progressive and this is how the party is going to have to move,” Grant said.

Lawrence, who plans to vote third party in this election, agreed with Grant, saying he’s been concerned that Harris is doing more lately to cater to the right on policies like immigration and climate change.

He said, “Is she more competent? Is she a better leader than Donald Trump? She answered the question tonight. But I think in terms of like, will she move the country forward and actually realize some of the gains that we’ve had ... that’s still an open question.”

Cameron Costa, a 23-year-old Democrat, said he was surprised there wasn’t more discussion of gun policy, especially in wake of the recent deadly school shooting in Georgia.

“It was one of the things that (Trump) wanted to keep saying that she was flip-flopping back and forth on, was really gun safety and gun reform,” Costa said.

McCarthy said the discussion of climate change and fracking was very disappointing. “Neither of them seem to understand what climate policy is....Coming out like hard with saying 'We’re fracking’ when they’re talking about climate change makes no sense. And that was really sad to see.”

Trump said some startling things, but remains a challenge on the debate stage

Ky Urban, a 21-year-old Republican said Trump won the debate, appearing more calm and controlled than usual. He said while Harris represents no change, Trump does. “He used to be a loud mouth, there used to be more anger. He’s been more pulled back, he’s been more controlled which is definitely something the Republican party loves.”

The young voters picked up on some hot Trump moments of the evening, including his false comments on post-term abortion, Haitian migrants in Ohio eating pets, and Harris wanting to do “transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.”

“Everything that came out of his mouth shocked me,” Meyers said. Many of the Gen Z voters described Trump as rambling and negative. But, they didn’t write him off.

“I’m going to give credit where it’s due. I believe that Trump definitely can pose a challenge. I think he proved that in his debate with president Biden,” Meyers said.

Kunal Botla, a 19-year-old progressive was quick to note that despite Harris’s strong performance, the election will still be incredibly close. “It won’t be the kind of like large margins that people frequently think are necessary, but it’ll be those tiny numbers in critical swing states and critical districts.”

In recent weeks, some well-known conservatives such as Dick Cheney have come out in support of Harris. Urban said it doesn’t impact him, “I don’t think Cheney’s endorsement of Harris means anything...no one likes Dick Cheney.”

Grant said, “Maybe this tent is a little too big to include Dick Cheney.”

A detour for Taylor Swift

Midway through the conversation with GBH News, Botla alerted the group that Taylor Swift had endorsed Harris, in an Instagram post garnering 1.2 million likes in just 18 minutes.

Meyers said, “She’s always told people to vote. But she endorsed Biden and Harris in 2020. But since then, she’s been accused of like, white feminism, performative activism, especially because she’s a white woman, and she is a billionaire... she was silent up until this current endorsement, so it’s a relief for a lot of people who were definitely kind of teetering on their support of her as a person.”

Who won?

Costa: Harris
Botla: Harris
Grant: Harris
Meyers: Harris
McCarthy: Harris
Urban: Trump
Lawrence: Harris