On October 1st, 2024, Ohio Senator J.D Vance and Minnesota Senator Tim Walz took the stage as the Vice Presidential running mate for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris respectively. As Election Day is just a couple weeks away with no more debates scheduled, this debate proved to be a component of their campaign success.
What we saw from the Vance/Walz debate was rather different from what we saw between the Trump/Harris debate just a month prior. During Trump/Harris, Trump was harsh on his words, calling Harris’ father a Marxist, along with the two candidates sparring back and forth on heated debates over topics such as abortion, immigration, and the war in the Middle East. However, Vance and Walz took a more respectful approach, with the two debating but also finding themselves agreeing with each other. For example, Vance found himself united with Walz when talking about the Springfield, Ohio border, stating that “I agree with [Walz about the border issue]. I think you want to solve this problem, but I don't think that Kamala Harris does.” Additionally, Vance took the time to offer condolences to Walz who stated that his 17 year old son witnessed a shooting. Likewise for Walz, he agreed with Vance on the current state of abortions in the U.S, stating that “I agree with a lot of what Senator Vance said about what's happening. His running mate, though, does not. And that's the problem.”
The questions that were asked also were more centered around their role as the Vice President. These questions included if they agree with their respective running mates about certain policies. Walz did not have as many questions aimed towards Harris, but rather Vance had many questions centering around Trump’s previous decisions. During Vance’s response about his stance on January 6th and Trump’s belief that he was cheated out of winning the 2020 election, he dodged the question stating that he was worried about the future.
The question is now, how would this debate change public opinion about either of their campaigns? The answer is that it essentially didn’t except for the stance on the Vice Presidents. Vice Presidential debates rarely change much of the voters, as many will use the debate as a form of confirmation on their candidates’ stance. This doesn’t mean that the view on the candidates didn’t change. CBS News ran many polls on the new opinions on the two Vice Presidential candidates after the debate. Previously, these two have not had much airtime on TV, but being centerstage now bolstered their popularity, with both now having an over 50% vote that they would fit to be president if needed when before the percentages were 45% or less. The debate watchers’ opinions on Vance and Walz increased in the “favorable” category by roughly 8-9% as well.
With a mainly respectful debate between the two, this is the final time that these voices will be heard on a primetime event like a debate. The election, being just weeks away, made this unassuming debate all the more important. With early polling results being so close between the two presidential candidates, an additional voice could bring a couple extra voters to one side that will make all the difference in the 2024 election.
Sources:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/full-vp-debate-transcript-walz-vance-2024/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-vp-debate-poll-2024/
https://apnews.com/article/debate-takeaways-vance-walz-harris-trump-5b6f219b555416ff579764048ac238a1
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/01/politics/vp-debate-takeaways-vance-walz/index.html
4 comments:
I agree with your idea that the VP debate likely will not have significant influence on the final outcome of the election come November 5, though I did find it significantly more enjoyable to watch than the presidential debate. Following the debate, I found it interesting how there was a lot of coverage in the media about who won the debate. While most debates are thought of as having "winner" and a "loser", I've often believed that these labels fail to apply to a presidential/VP debate, which are more about revealing candidate policy and reinforcing preexisting beliefs. It seems that such black and white media coverage is actually more likely to change the views/opinions of voters than the facts of the debate itself -- a particularly interesting issue that is potentially worsening polarization in the context of the upcoming divisive election.
Although the vice presidential debate turned out to be respectable, at least compared to the presidential debate, that was not what the population expected. The presidential debate, before the vice presidential debate, had controversial topics and the way the two presidential candidates had treated each other may have built up some expectations for the vice presidential debate to be similar. Moreover, the actions that Vance took prior to the debate, contributed to the expectation of a chaotic debate. For example, the media found an old video of Vance claiming women without children as “childless cat ladies.” Moreover, the fact that Vance defended the claim made by Trump about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs. Nevertheless, the actual debate turned out to be informative, covering a wide variety of topics, instead of arguing about who said what and what is true or not. It is concerning for me and I even fear for the future when people at the top of this country cannot even cover all of the critical topics, like climate change, within the allotted 90 minutes.
I agree that the VP debate may not have too big of an influence on how the election swings, though I do feel the debate will probably have a bigger influence this year than most given how close the election is. The debate was incredibly informative, with both VP candidates sticking to a far more fact-based approach than the presidential debate did. I do agree that the move by Vance to offer his condolences about Walz's son's traumatic experience was very respectful and unexpected, given how the presidential debate went. While the debate was very formal, I do think that the severe difference in beliefs is a bit concerning, especially with some of the more radical ideas proposed. In particular, Vance didn't exactly contradict some of the questionable statements Trump made and often even supported them, suggesting that while there was certainly formality, there were still underlying issues with some of the content.
I agree that although the vice presidential debate normally doesn't have a significant impact on the outcome of the presidential election, it could be more influential this year. With so much polarization between the two parties and their respective candidates, the vice presidential nominees had a chance to defend their beliefs in a more factual and cordial debate setting. I believe this could sway voters in favor of either direction, as it was a chance to hear about each candidate's policies in more detail. While many American people already have fairly cemented perceptions of the presidential candidates, most are less familiar with the VP picks. I think this could make the VP debate have more impact, because people may be more willing to hear "opposing" arguments from someone they don't have a strong opinion about. However, the debate also seemed to reveal a potential disconnect between Trump and his running mate Vance, who didn't outright support some of Trump's past actions (such as when he was asked about January 6th).
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