As October officially began—the beginning of spooky season—vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance met on a stage in New York City for the first and only VP debate of the campaign season.
Historically, vice presidential debates mean very little to the election as they happen late in the campaign season when many voters have already decided the candidate who they will vote for. As Republican debate coach Brett O’Donnell expressed in an interview with NPR, “I can’t recall a moment in history where a VP debate has swung the race, and I don’t expect that will happen this time.”
Compared to the presidential debates that shape TV news media, vice-presidential debates don’t find themselves particularly newsworthy. However, there are moments that deem themselves newsworthy. For example, in the 1988 VP debate, Republican candidate Dan Quayle compared himself to JFK, leading Democratic candidate Lloyd Bentsen to reply, “I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” A more recent example would be the 2020 debate where the most newsworthy moments were the fly landing on the head of incumbent Mike Pence and Kamala Harris clapping back at her opponent with, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking. I’m speaking. OK?”
The most recent vice presidential debate was historic for other reasons. On the afternoon of July 21, President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the presidential race, after a debate performance called “disastrous” by many of his Democratic colleagues, and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to take his place in the election.
By August—the start of the Democratic National Convention (DNC)— Vice President Harris, now the Democratic presidential candidate, had picked Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz to be her running mate, setting up an October debate between Walz and Vance.
Hosted by CBS and moderated by Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, the two candidates spoke on a number of issues, such as the conflict in the Middle East, gun violence, and reproductive rights.
In comparison to the June 27 and September 10 debates, the debate between Walz and Vance was seen to be civil and cordial, where the candidates levied blows at the presidential candidates and their policies rather than at the other man on the stage. In a standout moment of the night, while discussing the topic of gun violence, Governor Walz shared that his son had witnessed a shooting at a community center, to which JD Vance responded, “Tim, first of all, I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witnessed the shooting. And I’m sorry about that.” A stark contrast to the sharp attacks thrown around just a few weeks prior in the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a sense of respect hung over both potential vice presidents. As JD Vance promised in his closing remarks, “If Tim Walz is the next vice president, he’ll have my prayers, he’ll have my best wishes, and he’ll have my help whenever he wants it.”
Both candidates had very different openings to the debate as Walz struggled while discussing the Middle East—earlier that day Israel had fired missiles into Iranian territory—confusing Iran and Israel, saying “Iran, or I uh, Israel’s ability to be able to defend itself is fundamental.” But he called for an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Both candidates agreed though that Israel has a right to defend itself.
JD Vance used the debate to discuss the change in his perspective on his running mate after previously calling him unfit for office and insisted, “Donald Trump delivered for the American people—rising wages, rising take-home pay, an economy that worked for normal Americans, a secure southern border—a lot of things, frankly, that I didn’t think he’d be able to deliver on.”
During the conversation about reproductive rights, while agreeing with his running mate that abortion should be left to the states, Vance attempted to shift the Republican message while floating ideas not proposed or committed to by the GOP. Tim Walz, in response, attested, “In Minnesota, what we did was restore Roe v. Wade. We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care. This is a basic human right.”
Many viewers called the debate positive and appreciated that it stuck to the issues at hand rather than the off-topic arguments that framed the previous presidential debates. A Fox News poll in San Francisco found that 51 percent of viewers thought that Vance won, while 49 percent believed that Walz was the winner. In a similar agreement, a poll conducted by CBS found that 42 percent of viewers said that Vance won, while 41 percent said that Walz won. 17 percent of people believed that the debate ended in a tie.
This was not your standard vice presidential debate; two months ago, no one thought that it would be Tim Walz on the stage across from JD Vance. Never had a candidate dropped out of the race only a few months before the opening of the polls, reshaping the entirety of election season. Beyond that, this debate was historic for other reasons as viewers found it to be positive and refreshing, words that among the media would have previously not been associated with a political event.
While Election Day is not for another nine days, early voting in Florida—if you are registered to vote in the state—is now open through November 3. While you can vote early at any of the locations in Orange County, the closest to Rollins is the Winter Park Library, which is convenient for any students wanting to vote but who cannot make it out to the polls on Election Day.
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