A VP debate that changed nothing

A mild-mannered JD Vance was better at debate than a nervous Tim Walz. It doesn’t matter.

James Joyner
·
Wednesday October 2, 2024
· 5 comments

The wife and I watched the first hour of the vice presidential debate between Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz before calling it a day. The match was notable for Vance’s relative politeness, ease and Walz’s nervousness and inability to answer simple questions. (Apparently the evening ended with a question about whether Trump had won the 2020 contest, which Vance should have been prepared for and wasn’t.) However, it didn’t change my opinion on whether Donald Trump should run for president again, and I firmly believe I strongly suspect that this, like other VP debates before it, will have virtually no impact on the race.

WaPo (“Vance and Walz face off in what could be the final meeting of the presidential campaigns“):

It was a political joust with a healthy Midwestern side.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) shook hands twice Tuesday before the cycle’s only vice presidential debate, exchanging wide smiles before repeatedly paying respects to each other as they launched sustained and caustic attacks on each other’s running mates.

In stark contrast to September’s presidential clash between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris — who barely concealed their dislike for each other — the running mates often went out of their way to be friendly while focusing more on policy differences then on personal slights. .

They praised, sympathized and acknowledged that they were in agreement on how to tackle some of the country’s most difficult and divisive issues. At the same time, neither man shied away from the dirty work their campaigns required them to do.

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 led to a widening war in the Middle East.

“Tim, I think you have a tough job here, because you have to play whack-a-mole,” Vance said in an expression of sympathy before an attack. “You have to pretend that Donald Trump has not ensured rising net wages, which of course he has. You have to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t lower inflation, which of course he did. And then at the same time you had to defend Kamala Harris’ atrocious economic record.

Walz deflected from the first question about the Middle East, stating that the nation does not need “an almost 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd size” to resolve the situation. He called Trump’s recent dismissal of the traumatic brain injuries suffered by U.S. troops during his presidency a “headache.” And he chided Trump for practicing diplomacy on Twitter and not paying federal taxes.

Walz went on to criticize Vance for repeating baseless claims that immigrants in the senator’s home state had eaten their neighbors’ pets, a claim that local officials say is lacking. He also said Trump helped defeat a bill that would have solved the immigration problem because he wanted to implement immigration reform.

NYT (“Civility and then a clash on January 6: seven lessons from the debate“):

Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota spent most of their only debate not on each other but on their running mates, criticizing the past two administrations and eight years again as each promised that his ticket would be a would provide new direction for the nation. .

It was a substantive and largely civil debate between two Midwestern men that exposed the policy divide between the two parties on immigration, abortion and foreign policy. But no issue made the extent and stakes of the country’s current political divide clearer than the final topic of the evening, 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’s a damn non-answer,” Mr. Walz replied.

Mr. Vance looked well-groomed throughout. Mr. Walz spoke hesitantly, especially at first, and made a series of verbal stutters before he got to his point.

Vice-presidential debates rarely change presidential elections, and neither man appeared to face a race-defining stumbling block. But this debate, uniquely, is tentatively scheduled as the last debate of 2024.

This is followed by the “seven takeaways” from the headline, which I will simply list:

Vance had no answer to a fundamental question: Did Trump lose the 2020 election?
A glib Vance tried to frame Harris as the status quo.
Walz started off unsteadily, but found his foundation in abortion.
Vance tried to redefine Trump as the candidate for stability.
Walz called himself “an idiot” for misrepresenting his past.
Vance tried to go from ‘weird’ to relatable.
The microphones were hot until they weren’t.

Almost all reporting is the same.

NYT surveyed 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 is a lot of back and forth, but this image is illustrative:

Not only did they overwhelmingly think Vance won, but most found it inspiring in some way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

WaPo went for amateurs in “Who won the Vance-Walz VP debate? We asked swing state voters.”

Nearly twice as many people thought Vance won. On the other hand, a non-random sample of 22 is less than worthless.

Still, I find some of the takeaways funny:

“Vance has done a fantastic job of showing what the future of the Republican presidential candidates could be. He was poised, articulate and cultured. But he is working with the exact opposite in Donald Trump. Trump’s policies have proven dangerous and divisive. I cannot vote for a bully or for a campaign based on hate.”

“I experienced this debate as very friendly. They both seemed to care about the American people and agreed with what each other had to say. I’ve never seen a debate like tonight.”

But – once again recognizing the folly of a small sample size – there is this:

So the group was slightly more prone to the Trump-Vance ticket before the debate (11-9-2) and then finished at 13-9-1. For those who prefer words over images:

Of 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 probably still vote for Trump.

And of 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 supporting Trump.

Finally, one of the two voters who were undecided before the debate said they would likely vote for Harris, and one said they would vote for a third-party candidate.

So ostensibly, Vance’s performance turned a Harris slimer into a Trump slimer and Walz’s performance turned a neutral voter into a Harris slimer. Color me skeptical.