The highly anticipated debate between vice-presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz on Tuesday night delivered mixed reactions across the board on who came out on top and whether it will affect the 2024 race.
During the 90-minute debate hosted by CBS, the Ohio senator and Minnesota governor discussed and disagreed on ways in which to tackle the issues of healthcare, childcare, gun control, immigration, the economy, the climate crisis, reproductive rights, housing and the escalating conflict in the Middle East.
CBS News conducted a poll of registered voters after the debate and found that 42% of debate watchers surveyed said that Vance won the debate, while 41% thought Walz emerged as the winner, and about 17% called the debate a tie.
A majority of viewers surveyed also said that both candidates sounded “reasonable” on Tuesday night, rather than “extreme”.
Walz was seen as better at talking about healthcare and abortion, while Vance was seen as stronger on immigration, according to CBS. Voters also said that Vance spent more time attacking Kamala Harris than explaining his own stances and viewpoints, whereas Walz spent more time explaining his own views.
Another poll, conducted by CNN, found 51% of the viewers surveyed said that Vance did a better job, in contrast with 49% of viewers who said that Walz did a better job. That poll found Walz more in touch with the needs of voters and the vision for the country, though Vance did boost his standing among the debate audience and outperformed expectations.
A Politico poll from Tuesday night noted that Walz had a commanding advantage with independents, 58% of whom sided with the Minnesota governor. Walz received the highest rating from young people, particularly those aged 25 and 34, as well as those with college degrees and Black and Latino voters, per the poll. Vance performed best with people over the age of 55, white voters and those without college degrees.
After the debate, both presidential campaigns put out statements, arguing that their vice-presidential candidate won.
The Harris campaign stated that Walz “showed exactly why Vice President Harris picked him”, adding that he is a “leader who cares about the issues that matter most to the American people”.
“Americans got to see a real contrast: a straight talker focused on sharing real solutions, and a slick politician who spent the whole night defending Donald Trump’s division and failures,” the statement continued.
In a contrasting statement, the Trump campaign described Vance’s performance as “dominant” and called the debate a “victory”.
“Senator Vance unequivocally won tonight’s debate in dominating fashion. It was the best debate performance from any Vice-Presidential candidate in history,” the Trump campaign said. “Senator Vance spoke the truth, eloquently prosecuted the case against Kamala Harris’ failed record, and effectively held Governor Tim Walz accountable for his lies on behalf of the Harris-Biden Administration.”
Throughout Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, politicians, political strategists and others shared their reactions to the highly anticipated debate.
On NewsNation, Mark Kelly, a Democratic senator representing Arizona, said that Walz “did great” adding that he “spoke to the American people in a way that they will understand”.
Kelly highlighted one of the last moments from the debate, where Vance could not respond to the question of whether Trump won the 2020 election.
“It makes me rather concerned about whether we could find ourselves in a situation again where we have a challenge in certifying the election and you know, what could happen in the days that follow,” Kelly said.
During the debate, Walz asked Vance whether Trump lost the 2020 election. Vance dodged and sidestepped the question and responded: “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” which Walz called a “damning non-answer”.
On social media, Stuart Stevens, an American author and a former Republican strategist who advises the Lincoln Project, a political action committee run by moderate conservatives and former Republican party members who oppose Trump and Maga, also pointed out Vance’s inability to say whether Trump won the 2020 election.
“How humiliating must it be for J.D. Vance that he can’t admit America has a legal election or his boss will fire him,” Stevens wrote on X.
Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, told CNN after the debate that Walz was “someone that you can trust”, adding that Walz was not “messing around playing games up there in the debate stage and pretending I’m all with you, with my heart and then supports policies that have nothing to do with what you just said”.
“He is what he is, and I think that’s what’s going to come across to the American people. That’s what came across today,” she added.
Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary for the Biden administration and former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, wrote on X that Walz “displayed his characteristic decency and passion for making everyday life better for Americans” during the debate.
“Even when facing polished falsehoods, he reminded us why the future will be so much better under Kamala Harris’ leadership than a return to the chaos of the Trump era,” Buttigieg added.
The Maryland governor, Wes Moore, praised Walz and criticized Vance, saying that Vance “illustrated a revisionist history that further jeopardizes our freedoms and democracy as we know it”.
Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, praised Walz for “standing up for American workers” during the debate.
“Michigan remembers what happened under Donald Trump. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost across all industries, including manufacturing. The Biden-Harris administration was critical to bringing jobs back to Michigan,” Whitmer said.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers union, thanked Walz on social media, for “calling out JD Vance’s lies about immigrants in Springfield”.
“Those lies have led to bomb threats in schools and have upended the community” she said. “It’s shameful that Vance spread those lies.”
Weingarten also added in a statement that she believed that Walz won the debate, “by doing what good teachers do: On every question he was asked, he offered practical solutions for a better future”.
But for Jen Psaki, the former press secretary for Joe Biden who is now a host on MSNBC, Walz “was spending a lot of time in the first half or two-thirds” of the debate “proving he read the briefing materials”, but Psaki felt like that the debate was “missing the magic and the organic spontaneity of Tim Walz”.
Asha Rangappa, a legal analyst and former FBI special agent, wrote on X that she believed that Walz “missed a lot of opportunities to go on the attack and point out Vance’s lies and hypocrisy”.
On Fox News, the Florida congressman Byron Donalds praised Vance, and said that he “kept the pressure on all night, keeping it to policy, Donald Trump’s vision, Donald Trump’s policies, why they work”.
Echoing Donalds, Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, described Vance as having an “absolutely dominant performance” on Tuesday night, adding that “you can see why President Trump picked him”.
The former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy also praised Vance on X, saying that he was “very proud of JD for a stellar performance tonight”. Ramaswamy added: “And my condolences to Tim Walz – it was unkind for them to put him in this position.”
When it comes to the approaches by both candidates, Wendy J Schiller, a professor of political science at Brown University, told Newsweek that Vance wanted “to seem more presidential and less ‘mean’ and he mostly accomplished that goal” and that Walz “wanted to emphasize his appeal to moderates, especially in midwest swing states”.
Jennifer N Victor, associate professor of political science at George Mason University, also told Newsweek that in her view: “Vance won on style and Walz won on substance.”