12 thoughts on the Vance/Walz debate

Plus: How last night debunked the Donald Trump Fallacy.

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, October 2, 2024. Election Day is 34 days away.

Let’s kick off the morning with my analysis of last night’s vice presidential debate. If you want to hear more from me about the debate, I’ll be on NPR’s “1A” at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. Tune in here or on the radio.

#1: I thought JD Vance won the debate, let’s just start there. Tim Walz got somewhat better as the night went on (one of the final exchanges of the night, on January 6th, was his best), but he started out visibly nervous, and spoke quickly and unsteadily throughout. (At one point, he even garbled his words so much that he mistakenly said he was “friends with school shooters.”) Vance, meanwhile, was confident all the way through — smoother, more polished, more practiced. While Walz often looked down during Vance’s answers, taking notes, Vance — like Harris last month — used body language to his advantage, throwing knowing looks at the camera while his rival was speaking.

#2: Vance was chosen to be a competent messenger for Trumpism, and that’s exactly what he was last night. He succeeded in putting a reasonable sheen on Trump’s policies; it’s no mistake that he used the phrase “common sense” seven times to describe the former president’s agenda. He gave one of the best answers I’ve heard on abortion from a Republican in the post-Roe era, acknowledging that the GOP has to do a “much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue.”

Above all, like Trump in his debate with Biden but unlike Trump in his debate with Harris, Vance was relentless in driving home Trump’s best talking point: the argument that the world is more chaotic and that the economy is worse now than it was when Trump was in office. “We need a president who has already done this once before and did it well,” Vance said. No distractions about eating cats and dogs there. (Although he did falsely lump in Springfield, Ohio, with the issue of “millions of illegal immigrants” entering the country. The Haitian immigrants in Springfield legally migrated to the U.S. by receiving Temporary Protected Status.)

#3: Walz left a lot of attacks on the table. During a back-and-forth on health care, for example, Vance said that “we currently have laws and regulations in place right now that protect people with pre-existing conditions.” He did not mention that those “laws and regulations” are better known as Obamacare, which Trump tried to repeal. Walz did not call him on it in his response, instead letting himself get dragged into a debate on the individual mandate. Walz let a lot of pitches like that sail by throughout the night.

#4: The debate was a strikingly civil, healthy dialogue. Before going too far in declaring this a triumph for Midwestern niceness (as much as I would like to, as a Missourian), it’s worth noting that this isn’t unusual for the VP debate. In 2000, the New York Times praised the VP contenders for debating with “studied civility.” In 2008, the Washington Post wrote that the Biden-Palin match-up, “friendlier than the presidential debate,” was a “reminder that politics can be fun.” In 2020, Politico called the running mates debate “civil and calm.” And so on.

Still, even by that standard, it was hard not to notice how often Vance and Walz, well, agreed with each other, repeatedly striking some of the same populist notes. “Much of what the senator said right there, I’m in agreement with him on,” Walz said in response to Vance’s point about global trade deals leading to a decline in domestic manufacturing jobs. “I actually agree with Tim Walz,” Vance said about his opponent’s argument that housing shouldn’t be treated as “another commodity.”

They also went out of their way to be decent to each other — a low bar, but frankly a refreshing sight. “First of all, I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witnessed [a shooting at a community center],” Vance said at one point. “And I’m sorry about that. Christ, have mercy.” Walz replied: “I appreciate that.” The debate ended with a handshake and with both candidates thanking the hosts at CBS (also somewhat novel in today’s era) and what looked like pleasant interactions between the running mates and their wives.

#5: Don’t get too distracted by all the agreement, though: both candidates were clever in how they played those moments, repeatedly trying to drive a wedge between their rival VP candidate and his running mate. “I agree with you, I think you want to solve this problem,” Vance said on border security. “But I don’t think that Kamala Harris does.” Walz used the same strategy: “I agree with a lot of what Senator Vance said about what’s happening,” he said on abortion. “His running mate, though, does not. and that’s the problem.”

The clear message, from both candidates: Sure, the guy on stage with me sounds reasonable. But don’t believe that their running mate is anywhere as moderate. The result, as I’ll discuss below: both VP candidates shot up in favorability after the level-headed, civil debate. But it’s not clear that either delivered much of a boost to the top of the ticket.

#6: Republicans are crowing about Vance’s impressive performance this morning, but they should be sobered by it as much as reassured. I wrote last week that an obvious lesson from the polling this cycle is that “American voters throng to…moderate, generic-seeming candidates.” Democrats have learned that lesson, nominating such candidates up and down the ballot. JD Vance has learned that lesson, shaving down some of his sharper edges when he stepped onto his biggest stage yet. But Donald Trump has not.

Can you imagine Trump practicing the humility, as Vance did, to acknowledge that their party has often messaged abortion poorly? (Not that Trump doesn’t believe that, but it’s not how he would frame the point.) Or taking a beat in an answer on gun violence to express sympathy for his opponent’s son who witnessed a shooting? Or pausing to say that a woman who died while traveling to another state to receive an abortion “should be alive” and “I certainly wish that she was”? Or saying, if his rival wins, “he’ll have my prayers”? Of course not.

In my piece last week, I wrote that — in the Republican Party’s recent history of nominating “not-obviously-electable candidates in competitive races” — they have scored exactly one victory (Trump in 2016) and a string of losses. But members of both parties continually get distracted by the outlier. Last night, on X, a left-of-center pundit wrote that Walz was “probably being nicer than you'd like because undecided voters, the people who don't have strong partisan opinions, hate meanness and partisanship.” To which Osita Nwanevu, an editor for the liberal New Republic, responded: “If this were true, Donald Trump would never have been elected and we wouldn’t be on the cusp of reelecting him. They just don't care all that much.”

From here on out, I will refer to this as the Donald Trump Fallacy. There is no polling or electoral evidence to support the idea that just because Trump — with his unique history and celebrity — gets away with certain excesses, it is a smart model for other candidates to pursue. (In fact, that Trump lost in 2020 and is now running even in an election that the fundamentals would expect he’d be doing much better in suggests that even he pays a price for his excesses.)

In some ways, I think Vance benefitted from the fact that he entered the debate with the “weird” attack hanging around his neck: not only did it lower the bar he had to clear, but it also gave him an obvious mandate to go out of his way at every turn to sound as not-weird as possible and to come off like a regular, middle-of-the-road guy, not a raging partisan (a task he accomplished). That’s exactly how the most electorally successful Republicans of the era, people like Brian Kemp and Mike DeWine, try to sound. It is not how the party’s electoral under-performers, like Blake Masters and Mark Robinson, run their campaigns. Maybe every Republican should run like there’s a perception out there that they’re “weird” — just to remain focused on doing everything they can to smash it. Coming off as likable is still a worthy endeavor.

Vance showed last night that it is possible to make Trumpism sound reasonable to the median voter. Unfortunately for Republicans, they have nominated (for the third time) a candidate who often struggles to do just that.

#7: This is a point a lot of others have made, but it seems pretty clear to me that Vance was well-served by the fact that he has given a lot of interview since joining the ticket and Walz was poorly served by the fact that he has given almost none. One way you could tell this? Watch Walz’s closing statement, where he noted that Harris has built a coalition stretching “from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift.” When Walz was delivering clearly scripted lines, he was smooth, calm, and measured. When he was answering reporters’ questions (that is, during the rest of the debate), which requires going off-script, he was much more frenzied and rushed. That’s how you can tell he hasn’t gotten much practice going off-script throughout the campaign, and would have benefitted from getting some more reps in (especially since we know, from his media tour during the veepstakes, that he isn’t always bad in the unscripted format. He’s just lost practice.)

#8: One thought I had throughout the night was whether the aftermath would goad Trump into facing Kamala Harris for another debate. Much of the post-debate commentary has counted Vance as the winner (or at least called it a tie). Will Trump take the W and allow that to be the last word for his campaign? Or will he grow frustrated enough by the fact that pundits called him a loser and are calling Vance a winner that he tries to change the narrative with another debate?

So far, it doesn’t seem like it. “I beat Biden, I then beat her, and I’m not looking to do it again, too far down the line,” he wrote on Truth Social last night. The Harris campaign, however, clearly would like a different last word: “Vice President Harris believes that the American people deserve to see her and Trump on the debate stage one more time,” Harris’ campaign chair said in a statement after Vance and Walz left the stage.

#9: Both candidates’ worst responses were to questions they simply didn’t answer. For Vance, it was a question not from the moderators, but from Walz, who asked him if Trump lost the 2020 election. “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance responded. “That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said, perhaps the moment when he was quickest on his feet throughout the night. The Harris camp is reportedly already cutting the moment into an ad, and it very well may end up being the most resonant moment of the night. (I’d also note that, in the same exchange, Vance pivoted from talking about January 6th to talking about Big Tech censorship — an example of him diving into a right-wing online echo chamber, which he mostly avoided doing throughout the night. When he did do so, it did not serve him well.)

#10: Walz’s worst answer came when the moderators asked him about reports that he has claimed repeatedly that he was in Hong Kong on the day of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, even though contemporaneous reports show that his visit came months later. Walz’s first stab at answering that very predictable question was a rambling response about growing up in a small town where “you rode your bike with your buddies till the streetlights come on” and defending his trips to China, which were not at issue. When the moderator followed up, Walz responded: “All I said on this was, is, I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just, that’s what I’ve said.” It was awkward to watch.

#11: One other exchange that stuck out to me. At one point, Walz made a point to defend expertise, criticizing Vance for casting doubt on economic, national security, and scientific experts. “My pro tip of the day is this: if you need heart surgery, listen to the people at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, not Donald Trump,” Walz said.

That teed up Vance perfectly for his response:

Governor, you say ‘trust the experts,’ but those same experts for 40 years said that if we shipped our manufacturing base off to China, we’d get cheaper goods. They lied about that. They said if we shipped our industrial base off to other countries, to Mexico and elsewhere, it would make the middle class stronger. They were wrong about that. They were wrong about the idea that if we made America less self-reliant, less productive in our own nation, that it would somehow make us better off. And they were wrong about it. And for the first time in a generation, Donald Trump had the wisdom and the courage to say to that bipartisan consensus, “we’re not doing it anymore.”

I thought this back-and-forth was such a perfect distillation of one of the crucial divides in American life right now: trust vs. distrust of expertise. A lot about the 2024 election — and the realignment that has found Dick Cheney and AOC and Kamala Harris arrayed on one side, and Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. and Donald Trump on the other — can be explained by this divide, as voters increasingly split over whether they trust or are disillusioned by the “establishment.” You don’t always see a major divide like that boiled down so perfectly to one exchange on national TV, and it was striking to watch it play out in real time.

#12: Now let’s talk about the polling, which shows a very clear result: a tie! A CBS News poll of debate watchers found that 42% thought Vance won the debate and 41% thought Walz did. A CNN poll gave Vance the edge, 51% to 49%. A Politico poll found it literally dead-even, 50% to 50%. Each survey showed both candidates receiving significant boosts to their favorability rating after the debate, with Walz going from popular to very popular and Vance going from unpopular to neutral.

In the end, partisans of both sides clearly watched the debate and thought their guy emerged the winner. (Politico, the only one to ask abut partisanship, found independents breaking for Walz, 58% to 42%.) So, as is usually the case with the VP debate, it doesn’t seem like the event will make much of a difference in the election: in fact, per CNN, just 2% of viewers said their minds were changed after watching. (That small segment split evenly, 1% for Harris/Walz and 1% for Trump/Vance.) The VP debate might make an impact on the 2028 Republican primary — Vance has rehabbed his favorability rating and Republicans might remember his performance four years down the line — but it’s unlikely to move the needle in 2024. A tossup race yesterday is a tossup race today. Less than five weeks to go.

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More news to know

The arguably bigger news of the day, via the Associated Press: “Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel on Tuesday, the latest in a series of rapidly escalating attacks between Israel and Iran and its Arab allies that threatens to push the Middle East closer to a regionwide war.”

“Iran said the barrage was retaliation for a series of devastating blows Israel has landed in recent weeks against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began. Earlier Tuesday, Israel launched what it said is a limited ground incursion in southern Lebanon.”

…“Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the country’s air defenses intercepted many of the incoming Iranian missiles, though some landed in central and southern Israel. Israel’s national rescue service said two people were lightly wounded by shrapnel. In the West Bank, Palestinian officials said a Palestinian man was killed by a missile that fell near the town of Jericho, though it wasn’t clear where the attack originated.”

• What’s next: Israel is promising to retaliate, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that “Iran made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it.” Stateside, lawmakers from both parties issued calls for a strong, U.S.-backed response from Israel: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the two countries should coordinate to strike Iran’s oil refineries, while Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said that Iran has “put its nuclear facilities on the board as fair game.” President Biden said that the U.S. is “fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel” but did not specify next steps.

The Guardian: Hurricane Helene death toll rises to 166 with hundreds more still missing

CNN: Massive port strike begins across America’s East Coast, threatening shortages and rising prices

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The day ahead

• President Biden will travel to Greenville, South Carolina, where he will receive an aerial tour of impacted areas from Hurricane Helene, and Raleigh, North Carolina, where he will receive an operational briefing on the hurricane response.

• VP Harris will deliver remarks in Augusta, Georgia on the Helene response.

• Former President Trump has nothing on his schedule.

• Gov. Tim Walz will campaign in York, Pennsylvania.

• Sen. JD Vance will campaign in Auburn Hills and Marine, Michigan.

• The House and Senate are on recess.