Americans Across a Divided Nation Weigh in on Election 2024

Tayo Daniel, Amy Garner, Cary Gordon and Christine Mann live in states spread across the U.S., have different occupations and hold varying political beliefs.

But in September of this year, they were among millions of Americans all doing the same thing: watching the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Their reactions — and those of four other people profiled in the FRONTLINE documentary, American Voices 2024, which premiered on Oct. 29, 2024, and is now available to watch online — unfold in the above clip, offering a panoramic glimpse of voters’ feelings about the 2024 election, ranging from excitement to anger — and, for some people, disenchantment with the U.S. political system and both major-party candidates.

That’s the case with Cary Gordon, pastor of a church in Sioux City, Iowa, who says he can’t “vote in good conscience” for either Trump or Harris, and will “probably” vote third-party.

“Get ready to be annoyed,” Gordon says in the excerpt as the debate is about to begin.

FRONTLINE first began following these Americans in 2020 as they navigated a year of extraordinary tumult, from a pandemic to protests to the polls. Their diverse views and experiences as they dealt with COVID-19 in their communities that spring, responded to George Floyd’s killing that summer, and then participated in the divisive election and its aftermath that fall were chronicled in the November 2020 documentary American Voices: A Nation in Turmoil. 

Four years later, amid another polarizing and turbulent election season, American Voices 2024 updates the same Americans’ stories, exploring how their lives, hopes and fears have changed since 2020 in a nation that remains deeply divided.

For Bryant Moore, who watches the debate from the barbershop where he works in Portland, Oregon, the 2024 election is a matter of voting for “the lesser of both evils.”

Others express enthusiasm for Harris or Trump — like Christine Mann, a doctor who wears a Harris T-shirt at a debate watch party in Texas, and Amy Garner, a mom whose family’s house in Missouri has a “Trump 2024” flag flying outside.

As the debate goes on, Tayo Daniel, co-founder of a nonprofit in Minnesota focused on digital equity, voices his belief in the importance of supporting people who are working for change at a community level.

“We can’t sit there and look at Republican or Democratic — we got to look at ourselves, and be like, ‘What are we doing in our community, in our internal community?’” he says.

Filmed by cinematographers around the country, American Voices 2024 is a journey across geography, race and politics that sheds light on where the country has been — and where it is headed.

For the full story, watch American Voices 2024:

The documentary premiered on Oct. 29, 2024. It is available to watch on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, the PBS App and the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. American Voices 2024 is a FRONTLINE production with Five O’Clock Films in association with DEC8 Productions and Mike Shum Productions. The producers are Qinling Li and Arthur Nazaryan. The writers are Qinling Li and Mike Shum. The director is Mike Shum. The senior producers are Callie T. Wiser and Frank Koughan. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

This story has been updated.