Was the Vice-Presidential Debate a Wash?

I watched the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night for about an hour, at which point my wife demanded to know where the remote was so she could turn the television off. I asked if there was a single moment that triggered her, but she explained it more as a cumulative effect. She just couldn’t take anymore of J.D. Vance’s bullshit. She did almost howl with displeasure early on when Vance talked over the female moderators, and I noticed on X/Twitter that this was a widespread reaction among women. Other than that, though, I couldn’t say what exactly made my wife find the experience so intolerable.

My impression of the part I watched live was that it was a pretty evenly matched showdown. Vance was prepared and spoke with a lot of confidence, and hit the points of Democratic weakness repeatedly while doing a good job of sidestepping difficult questions. A lot of what he said what inaccurate, dishonest or simply made up, but it would be hard to know that if you weren’t up on the issues he was discussing. Walz was less polished and somewhat nervous, but equally prepared. He missed some chances to hit Vance and Trump, but I think it was part of the strategy not to be too combative. This is a campaign about joy after all. And I think it worked in some ways. One post-debate survey I saw showed that both candidates had improved their favorability considerably, but Vance remained underwater while Walz’s improvement was more pronounced.

I followed the last half hour on social media, and my impression is that Walz clearly won the final third segment of the debate. Overall, I was most impressed with his answers on school shootings, abortion and infertility treatments, and his discussion of the importance of accepting that Trump lost the 2020 elections and of candidates shaking hands after elections and accepting the results.

Vance’s had two very bad moments. The first was when he was corrected after saying the Haitians in Middletown, Ohio are illegal immigrants (they’re not) and complained that he thought there would be no fact-checking. That instantly went viral. The second was when he refused to admit that Trump had lost the 2020 election and tried to deflect by saying he was “focused on the future.” That was also viciously mocked in meme after meme. I think he also really hurt himself, particularly with women, when he tried to bully the female moderators.

All the post-debate polls I saw showed the match even or nearly so, with some showing Vance a point or two ahead. I think the Republicans will be happiest that Vance managed to rehabilitate himself somewhat from very dismal pre-debate favorability ratings. More people still dislike him than not, but it’s less pronounced and therefore he might be a total albatross going forward.

The Democrats will be happy that Walz held his own and produced some very valuable video clips that will help them win the post-debate battle. The fact that both sides are pretty satisfied with the result is a good indication that the debate won’t likely change the dynamics of the race. I’d say it was probably a wash. But with the race so close, it’s still possible that it will turn out to have been important to the eventual outcome.

If it is, it will be less because of the overall reaction than in differences in how subgroups perceived things, and how those subgroups are distributed in the key states that will decide the Electoral College winner. Walz had a more common sense appeal, I believe, which is kind of the opposite of what normally happens in debates between Democrats and Republicans. But Vance helped his ticket by changing the brutal caricature the Democrats had succeeded in imposing on him after he was announced as the running mate. He seemed less weird and threatening.

My suspicion is that while these things are not unimportant, they will be dwarfed by other events, many coming from Trump, which will be much more at the forefront of the electorate’s mind at ballot box.