Fresno State students packed the Alice Peters Auditorium Wednesday night for a presidential debate viewing between President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

The event was co-sponsored by the Departments of Sociology and Political Science, Sociology Club, College Republicans and College Democrats at Fresno State.

Students brought iClickers to participate in an interactive, real-time poll before and after the debate.

The viewing room was packed with students, faculty and newscasters there to document the university reaction to the debate.

While the students gave President Obama an overall B on his debate performance and saw Romney take a more assertive stance, several students were curious as to why the two candidates didn’t speak more specifically on the domestic policy questions that were presented.

Jeff Cummins, associate professor from the political science department, helped to answer some of those inquiries.

“That’s intentional on Romney’s part. He’s trying to keep his plans vague because once you go into specifics, you’re going to lose some of your constituents out there,” Cummins said.

Cummins also pointed out that this election had an incredibly small percentage of undecided voters, by far more than elections past.

“There’s not too many in the audience right now, but what matters in the election is how undecided voters perceive this debate,” Cummins said

Among non-campus attendants was Nathan A. Alonzo, student government president and president of the College Republicans at Fresno City College.

“Well we definitely saw a distinction in both candidates tonight,” Alonzo said. “We saw where the line was drawn in the sand.”

J.D. Bennett, who is running for California State Assembly in the 31st District, took the time to attend the debate viewing.

“It was very clear and very decisive on where their stances are as far as Republican and Democrat. Basically, there’s always been a clear-cut line there, but the two of them were able to make that clear distinction to the American public tonight,” Bennett said.

Bennett’s campaign platform includes a tough stance on limiting budget cuts to education. Attending the debate viewing was important to Bennett as well since many of his staff members are Fresno State students.

“I think we need to continue building our higher education and I think students need to have the ability to have access to better loans at reduced rates with a shorter term of paying those back,” Bennett said.

Students polling at the end of the presidential debate believed that Obama won by a small percentage, and also said they’d vote for Obama over Romney by a small margin.