The wife and I watched the first hour or so of the Vice Presidential debate between Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz before calling it a night. The contest was notable for relative civility, Vance’s comfortability, and Walz’s nervousness and inability to answer simple questions. (Apparently, the night closed with a question about whether Trump won the 2020 contest that Vance should have been prepared for and wasn’t.) It did not, however, change my mind as to whether Donald Trump should become President again and I strongly suspect that, like other VP debates before it, it will have next to no impact on the race.
WaPo (“Vance, Walz square off in what could be final meeting of presidential campaigns“):
It was a political joust with a healthy side of Midwest nice.
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) shook hands twice Tuesday before the only vice-presidential debate of the cycle, exchanging broad smiles before repeatedly paying each other respect as they launched sustained and biting attacks on each other’s running mates.
In marked contrast to the September presidential clash between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris — who hardly concealed their disgust with each other — the running mates often went out of their way to be gracious, while focusing more on policy differences than personal slights.
They offered praise, sympathized and acknowledged that they agreed on how to address some of the country’s most vexing and divisive issues. At the same time, neither man shied away from the dirty work they had to do for their campaigns.
Vance referred to “our Democratic friends” even as he suggested that Harris had “enabled the Mexican drug cartels to operate freely in this country” and set the stage for the global instability that has sparked a widening war in the Middle East.
“Tim, I think you’ve got a tough job here because you’ve got to play whack-a-mole,” Vance said in an expression of sympathy before an attack. “You’ve got to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t deliver rising take home pay, which of course he did. You’ve got to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t deliver lower inflation, which of course he did. And then you simultaneously got to defend Kamala Harris’s atrocious economic record.”
Walz turned from the first question about the Middle East to argue that the nation doesn’t need “a nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes” to solve the situation. He quoted Trump’s recent dismissal of the traumatic brain injuries sustained by U.S. troops during his presidency as “headaches.” And he chided Trump for conducting diplomacy on Twitter and for not paying federal taxes.
Walz followed up by criticizing Vance for repeating unsubstantiated claims that immigrants in the senator’s home state had been eating the pets of their neighbors, a claim that local officials say lacks evidence. He also said Trump had helped to scuttle a bill that would have solved the immigration problem, because he wanted to run on immigration reform.
NYT (“Civility and Then a Clash Over Jan. 6: Seven Takeaways From the Debate“):
Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota spent most of their only debate aiming not at each other but at their running mates, relitigating the last two administrations and eight years as each promised his ticket would deliver a new direction for the nation.
It was a substantive and mostly civil debate between two Midwestern men that laid bare the policy chasm between the two parties on immigration, abortion and foreign policy. But no issue made clearer the size and stakes of the country’s current political divide than the final topic of the night, when Mr. Vance refused to concede that former President Donald J. Trump had lost the 2020 election.
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Mr. Vance said, trying to move on. “That is a damning nonanswer,” Mr. Walz replied.
Mr. Vance looked polished throughout. Mr. Walz spoke haltingly, especially at the start, taking a series of verbal stutter-steps before getting to his point.
Vice-presidential debates rarely reshape presidential elections, and neither man appeared to suffer a race-defining stumble. But this one, uniquely, is scheduled — for now — to be the final debate of 2024.
This is followed by the “seven takeaways” of the headline, which I’ll simply bulletize:
- Vance had no answer for a basic question: Did Trump lose the 2020 election?
- A smooth Vance sought to cast Harris as the status quo.
- Walz began unsteadily, but found his footing on abortion.
- Vance tried to reframe Trump as the candidate of stability.
- Walz called himself ‘a knucklehead’ for misrepresenting his past.
- Vance sought to go from ‘weird’ to relatable.
- The mics were hot until they were not.
Pretty much all the reporting is the same.
NYT polled their opinion writers and others in a compilation titled “‘He Made Trumpism Sound Polite, Calm and Coherent’: 13 Writers on JD Vance’s Debate Performance.” There’s a lot of back-and-forth but this graphic is illustrative:
Not only did they overwhelmingly think Vance won but most somehow found it inspiring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
WaPo went for amateurs in “Who won the Vance-Walz VP debate? We asked swing-state voters.”
Almost twice as many thought Vance won. Then again, a nonrandom sample of 22 is less than worthless.
Still, I find some of the takeaways amusing:
- “Vance did a fantastic job of showcasing what could be the future of Republican presidential candidates. He was poised and articulate and civil. But he is partnering with the exact opposite in Donald Trump. Trump’s policies have proven to be dangerous and divisive. I cannot vote for a bully or for a campaign based in hate.”
- “I found this debate to be very amicable. They both seemed to care about the American people and were agreeable to what each other had to say. I’ve never seen a debate like tonight’s.”
But—again acknowledging the silliness of a small sample—there’s this:
So, the group was slightly more predisposed to the Trump-Vance ticket (11-9-2) before the debate and wound up 13-9-1 afterward. For those who prefer words to pictures:
Among the 12 voters who leaned toward former President Donald Trump and Vance before the debate, five said they would “definitely” vote for Trump afterward. Seven said they would still probably vote for Trump.
And among the nine voters who leaned toward Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz before the debate, six said they would definitely support Harris after the debate. Two said they would probably vote for Harris. One switched to probably backing Trump.
Finally, among the two voters who were undecided before the debate, one said they would probably vote for Harris and one said they would vote for a third-party candidate.
So, ostensibly, Vance’s performance turned a Harris leaner into a Trump leaner and Walz’ performance turned a neutral voter into a Harris leaner. Color me skeptical.
