Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) participated in the 90 minute vice presidential debate on Tuesday night. This debate was a big chance for Vance, a significantly unpopular candidate, even within the Republican party, to represent himself as a more likable and moderate candidate.
It was also a chance for Walz to demonstrate his speaking abilities and policy stances, as someone who hasn’t been seen on the rally or debate stage as much as Vance.
Before I talk about this debate, I must acknowledge my bias. I will come right out and say that I strongly lean towards Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I have a distaste for both Donald Trump and JD Vance for a plethora of reasons I won’t get into right now.
That said, this is my attempt at an objective view of the debate. I will focus less on whether or not I agree with the candidate’s policies and more on how they performed from a debate standpoint.
Let’s get into it.
Walz had a rough start. Vance didn’t.
Walz had a pretty bad first couple answers. He was scarily reminiscent of Biden in the disastrous first presidential debate that largely led to his stepping down as the Democratic nominee.
Walz’s stuttering and misspoken words were out of control, and he didn’t have anything profound or impressive to say. He exuded nervous energy and showed his true colors as someone who is not a debater. His painfully slow cadence and monotonous tone sounded like he was reading off a script.
Walz lacked the passionate and strong tone that Vance brought to the table right off the bat. Vance came out and immediately proved himself to be a strong speaker and debater. He came off extremely prepared and calm, directly addressing the American people with compassion, something Trump struggled to do in the presidential debate.
In the first 30 minutes of the debate, I was immensely disappointed with Walz’s performance and concerned with how well Vance was performing. The gap between their skills was so large that I considered turning it off.
However, around the 30 minute mark, Walz fell into a proper cadence and clearly shook off the majority of his nervous energy. He developed extremely intelligent answers, especially concerning gun control and reproductive freedoms. I took a deep breath and was extremely grateful that it appeared to not be the blowout I was initially concerned about.
Vance’s recast as a likable and moderate candidate was successful.
Vance’s lack of fear surrounding essentially saying whatever he wants, whenever he wants, no matter how psychotic it sounds, has left a sour taste in America’s mouth. He has no shortage of one-liners, specifically surrounding attacks on people without children. For example, his whole “childless cat lady” bit was a poor first impression on the American voters, most importantly undecided swing voters.
Overall, the impression of Vance is that he is unlikeable, unpersonable and unfairly extreme on policy.
Miraculously, Vance came off as compassionate, moderate and extremely likable in the debate. He did an amazing job of sympathizing with the American people, something that contributed to Harris’ amazing performance in the presidential debate.
He thankfully didn’t add to the list of ridiculous one-liners – “they’re eating the dogs.” – that Trump sprinkled heavily throughout the presidential debate.
Vance seemed much more moderate and compassionate surrounding election hot topics than in the past, specifically concerning school shootings and reproductive rights. Vance showed understanding towards all opinions on these policies, most likely an attempt to reel in undecided voters in swing states.
The civility between the candidates was refreshing and unheard of in this era of politics.
In the presidential debate, candidates Trump and Harris were constantly antagonizing and jabbing insults at each other, refusing to compliment anything about the opposite candidate.
This couldn’t be further from the reality of the vice presidential debate. Vance and Walz were extremely civil and sympathetic towards each other. At times they even congratulated the other for beneficial policies, character traits or actions.
The candidates never spoke over each other and mostly respected each other’s time limits.
They rarely insulted each other directly, but instead criticized the presidential nominees. This led the debate to purely be an intelligent discussion about policy and less about who can come up with the more creative insult to throw across the debate stage.
The rest of America’s politicians need to take a page out of these gentlemen’s books.
There wasn’t a clear winner.
Unlike the presidential debate, where Harris clearly beat Trump by a landslide, this debate didn’t have a clear winner.
If you asked me in the first 30 minutes of the debate, I would say Vance was 100% the winner. Now it’s not that simple. I will give it to him, he was more consistent with his debate skills, but Walz really picked up the slack around the halfway point of the debate.
But, if I had to pick a winner, I would say Vance. He came across as moderate, compassionate, intelligent and overall a good debater. Even though lots of his moderate statements were lies, such as saying he has never said he would support a national abortion ban, they were not obvious.
When Trump lied in the presidential debate, his statements were so far-fetched and clearly untrue that I, who can’t process every single piece of political news, clearly knew he was lying.
Vance’s lies were believable and undetectable to the average debate viewer, largely because CBS didn’t live fact check like ABC did on the presidential debate.
In the second half of the debate, Walz was incredibly coherent, sympathetic, and intelligent. But his slow start can’t take the win over Vance’s unwavering inconsistency.
My overall takeaways:
This debate was very enjoyable to watch, more so than the presidential debate. I enjoyed that the performance of Vance and Walz was relatively even. I greatly appreciated the civility they enacted, which is unheard of in the current American political environment.
I’d say Vance won because he was more consistent than Walz, but it is refreshing to see a debate where the candidates were respectful of each other and engage in an intelligent discussion. Basically, I love that the candidates were decent human beings and did what they’re supposed to do – something that’s becoming more and more rare.
