Tim Walz Won The Debate Because Americans Don’t Think Like Pundits
Last night’s Vice Presidential debate was very different from anything we’ve seen in the last decade of American politics: it was civil, it was complex, it was dense, there were agreements, there were compliments, there were disagreements, there were no real insults… and it was a little boring (watch it or read the transcript here).
It was also not what many people expected. JD Vance has a recent history of making some very bad media appearances and speeches. He often says the weirdest stuff. In fact, it’s probably why Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz to be her running mate because between the Republican and Democratic conventions Walz first called Donald Trump and JD Vance “weird” and it became an internet sensation, potentially leading to his being chosen by Harris. Walz has a no-nonsense way of shutting down the weird, and many people expected Walz to both bring out the weird and to publicly disgrace it.
But that didn’t really happen. To be sure, Walz stood up to Vance on many occasions, but Walz never got personal, he never bullied Vance, and Vance never bullied Walz either. Their most heated debate came at the end, a question about January 6 where Vance refused to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, refused to say that he’d accept the election results in November, and Walz crucified him for it. But for most of the debate the two men, for the most part, typically agreed on what the problems were and disagreed on the best solutions. It was cordial. At times it was downright friendly. These two guys could have had this debate at a dinner party and it wouldn’t be awkward.
It was kinda nice.
After the debate, many on the left or even center left attacked Walz. They felt he wasn’t as polished as Vance. It’s not that Walz was bad, he wasn’t, in fact the two were evenly matched, but Vance often exhibited a near-effortless flow that alarmed many Harris/Walz supporters, whereas Walz appeared at times to be a little more stilted, a little more nervous, a little more tongue tied. Again, it’s not that Walz was bad, far from it, but some felt Vance was simply better. It was a better “performance.”
Furthermore, some were angry that Walz didn’t attack Vance hard enough. No mud was thrown, nothing was lit on fire, no line was drawn in the sand (with the notable exception, as I noted, on whether Trump and Vance would recognize the results of a fair election). Walz didn’t corner Vance. He didn’t pick him apart. He didn’t interrupt Vance (the opposite, if he talked over Vance or one of the moderators he quickly stopped talking and apologized — it was almost quaint). Walz never got into Vance’s head the way Harris got into Trump’s in the last debate. Walz never embarrassed Vance. He was, well, awfully nice.
This led to many pundits to immediately think that while this debate was pretty even, and neither side was likely to score a huge hit or miss with the voters, Vance beat Walz. That’s how I felt. It was the prevailing sentiment on Twitter, the pulse of the news addicts.
And it was wrong. The voters had a VERY different impression of that debate.
In particular, Americans appear to have been unnerved by Vance’s answers on abortion. This chart below is terrible news for the Vance/Trump camp because Harris/Walz is beating them by more than 20 points on the issue:
While a CBS focus group thought that Vance did an ever-so-slightly better job in the debate than Walz (probably because of the “polish” I mention above), Walz came out looking far more favorable than Vance did.
Fact-checkers, meanwhile, have mostly tore Vance’s statements to shreds while had far fewer criticisms of Walz.
So at the end of the debate, pundits thought Vance lied but they also guessed that his polished performance would make a huge impact on voters. It turns out that maybe they, we, didn’t give the voters enough credit.
Will it matter? As some pundits like to point out, the most one-sided Vice Presidential debate in history was arguably in 1988 when Lloyd Bentsen destroyed Dan Quayle, turning him into a meme for the ages. Bush and Quayle won 40 states and won the popular vote by 8 points. But that race wasn’t close, and this election may go down in history as one of the closest ever. Every vote counts. Many liberals watched the debate last night and were jealous of Vance’s performance. But, looking at these numbers, I think I’d much rather be in Walz’s shoes.
