Michael Grunwald is a senior staff writer for Politico Magazine.

DORAL, Florida—Eight undecided millennial voters watched the final debate together in this Miami suburb, and they all seemed to agree that Donald Trump was obnoxious, uninformed and generally deplorable. “His line about ‘bad hombres’ was incredibly racist and disrespectful to Latinos,” said Rodger, a 22-year-old college student wearing a red dress shirt and capris. “And refusing to accept the election results, that was like some tinpot dictator of a banana republic.”

But the group wasn’t wild about Hillary Clinton, either, because, well, it was hard for them to explain, something about her just rubbed them the wrong way. “I don’t know, she seemed arrogant,” Rodger said. “I just couldn’t relate to her.”


By the end of the debate, two members of the group had become reluctant Clinton supporters, while the other six remained undecided, with several leaning toward third-party candidates, though one wasn’t sure who those candidates were. They all agreed that Trump and Clinton are both pretty lame, and that the tone of the debate was irritatingly negative. They definitely didn’t like the personal attacks, but really, most of them seemed annoyed by the substantive disagreements as well.

“The topics were so divisive, so black-and-white,” said Gabriel, a 24-year-old Bernie Sanders supporter who works on virtual reality startups. “They just spent the whole time bickering.”

It’s easy to goof on wishy-washy millennials—an affordable housing activist named Adrian told me he disapproves of President Barack Obama’s job performance, but also thinks Obama might go down as one of the greatest presidents in history—so it’s worth noting that most of them aren’t undecided. Polls suggest that most prefer Clinton to Trump, including most of the Sanders supporters who inspired so many think pieces about Clinton’s problems with young voters. Still, Clinton needs those voters to turn out, especially here in Florida, a crucial swing state where 18- to 34-year-olds are now the largest age group, and there was a real pox-on-both-houses vibe at last night’s panel of undecideds at the Fusion TV network’s Doral studios. Adrian described the general election as a choice between a woman who embodies everything wrong with politics and a man who embodies everything wrong with humanity.

“Really, it comes down to who’s going to do less damage,” said Monica, a Latina student who might not vote at all. “Of course, Trump degrades women and minorities. But I don’t trust her. I don’t really know why. Maybe the emails?”

The debate was in many ways tailored to undecided voters, featuring sharp and unmistakable policy contrasts. Clinton came out for gun control, abortion rights and immigration reform, while Trump opposed all of them. Clinton said Obama “saved the economy,” while Trump portrayed the economy as a stagnant hellscape. Trump called for huge tax cuts that he said would create a huge economic boom; Clinton proposed tax hikes on rich families and big businesses, and ridiculed Trump’s plan as debt-exploding “trickle-down on steroids.”

But the millennials on the panel did not focus on those issues. A few complained that their pet issues went unmentioned; Adrian wanted to hear about housing, Gabriel about the corruption of the Federal Reserve. But for the most part, the group’s impressions of the candidates were impressionistic, and while they were appalled by Trump’s conspiratorial bluster and rude interruptions—they giggled when he bragged about his respect for women—they couldn’t warm up to Clinton.

“There’s something shady about her, something that isn’t genuine. I can’t put my finger on it,” said Natalie Dominguez, a 26-year-old recruiter.

Rick, a 34-year-old Marine reservist who voted for Marco Rubio in the primary, said Clinton has much more coherent foreign policies than Trump, and is not a “rambling fool” or an “extreme narcissist” like Trump. He’s tempted to vote for her and then oppose her in 2020, but she just bugs him. Rick disagrees with Obama’s policies but respects his honesty and good intentions; he thinks Clinton is a robotic political machine, saying whatever she thinks will get her elected. He said she just doesn’t feel like a leader.

"I hated how she kept mentioning all those people she meets when she’s campaigning,” he said with a wince. “I don’t think she really likes people.”

Most of these millennials weren’t even born when Clinton entered the White House as first lady, and none of them mentioned '90s-era Clinton scandals like Travelgate, or Whitewater, or her husband’s impeachment. They didn’t know much about Trump’s pre-campaign history, either, although a student named Kelli recalled the night Celebrity Apprentice was interrupted for Obama’s announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden. “I was like, 'Hey, that’s my show!'” she said. So they’ve drawn their dark conclusions about these candidates purely from the candidacies.

“I’m torn, because I’m not going to feel good about voting for either one of them,” Kelli said. “I might not vote. I don’t want to do the lesser of two evils.”

In the end, Adrian and a 29-year-old African-American construction manager named John did come around to Clinton’s side. Adrian thinks she’s an imperialist pig and a wholly owned subsidiary of the banking elite, but he wanted to hear Trump express remorse for his racism, and Trump doesn’t really do remorse. On the other hand, John was genuinely impressed with Clinton’s answers—not necessarily the policy substance, but the way she expressed familiarity with policy substance.

“I wanted to hear the how, and she gave us some of her how,” John said. He said he didn’t know the details of her multi-pronged immigration plans or tax plans or economic plans, but he could tell she was serious about them. In any case, the debate reinforced for him that her opponent is temperamentally unfit for the job, evoking images of a movie released 15 years before he was born.

“Trump was like Don Corleone up there,” John said. “She’s not my favorite, but we can’t have a Godfather president.”