Opinion | The vice presidential debate: How did the running mates perform?

Governor Tim Walz and Senator JD Vance faced off in the first and only vice presidential debate of 2024 on Tuesday night. For those that missed it or just don’t really care about Trump and Harris’s running mates, we’re here to give you the highlights of their performances.

JD Vance // Thomas Riley, Opinions Editor

After awkward jokes about racist Diet Mountain Dew, requests for “whatever makes sense” at a donut shop and resurfaced comments about childless cat ladies, I expected a laughably subpar performance from JD Vance. Instead, Vance delivered a fairly normal — if not lie-riddled — debate. It seems what he lacks in social skills, he makes up for in his ability to intelligibly respond to a question in two minutes.

Though he certainly sounded better than President Trump, he had his fair share of slip-ups, the most notable of which the Walz-Harris campaign immediately turned into a new campaign ad. When asked by Walz if Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, Vance dodged the question and said, “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” which Walz called “a damning nonanswer.”

It is a damning nonanswer, and not one that is anything new from Trump’s Republican party. On the same day as the VP debate, reporters asked Trump if he would trust the process of the election this time around, and he told them he would let them know in 33 days. The Trump-Vance campaign is making no effort to hide their intentions to once again stir up the public in the case that Trump loses another election. It’s hard to say whether he’ll manage to pull off a second Jan. 6, but I suppose he’ll let us know in 96 days.

Vance opened the debate with both a lie and a terrible policy position on Israel. He claimed Iran received $100 billion in unfrozen assets from Harris, but the Iran nuclear deal, which would have provided only $50 billion in sanctions relief, was negotiated by the Obama administration in 2015 and fell apart entirely in 2019 — all the assets are still frozen. On the question of whether he would support a preemptive strike on Iran by Israel, Vance claimed that “it is up to Israel to do what they think they need to do to keep their country safe.” This is what Israel has already been doing for almost a year now, and it has resulted in the death of tens of thousands of civilians and escalated conflicts across the Middle East. Regardless of personal visions for the future of Israel and Palestine, letting Israel do whatever it wants, especially in regard to a preemptive strike on rapidly nuclearizing Iran, is a wildly irresponsible position to take.

Vance was also hard on immigration, referring to undocumented immigrants as “illegal aliens” — a term that I’m surprised hasn’t come under greater fire in the more politically correct 2020s. While I could complain for days about the new hard-on-immigration Democrats, the rhetoric of the Trump-Vance campaign is blatantly dehumanizing. Calling them “illegal aliens” poses immigrants as an entirely different species infiltrating our country, facilitating the spread of false, xenophobic rhetoric — rhetoric that Trump is using to win him the election.

Much of Vance’s debate was in line with usual Republican policy, especially post-Trump Republican policy. He did, however, seem to make a few unexpected grabs toward the moderates on the issues of abortion and climate change.

While he stuck by Trump’s “Leave it up to the states” stance on abortion, he also acknowledged that the American people generally do not trust the Republican party on abortion. Over 60% of the country supports the right to abortion, including at least a third of Republicans, and this seemed to be Vance trying to win over some pro-choice Republican moderates who might be more hesitant with their vote given Trump’s refusal to give a clear answer on the question of a national abortion ban. Vance ditched the term “pro-life,” trying to rebrand the party’s abortion restrictions into nicer-sounding “pro-family” policies.

Vance also played both sides of his party on the issue of climate change, calling it “Weird Science” for the deniers while still entertaining the idea that carbon emissions drive climate change. After making the very bold and incorrect claim that America has “the cleanest economy in the world,” Vance tied the issue of climate change back around to American jobs, a safe issue that every corner of the Republican party can nod their heads at. 

While I agree with practically nothing Vance said on that debate stage, it would be a lie to say he didn’t give a decent performance for the people he sought to appeal to. With the exception of an argument over the legality of Haitian immigrants in Ohio, during which Vance complained that “the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact check,” he and Walz were respectful toward each other and followed the rules of the debate. While it was far less entertaining than the presidential debate, I’m sure a lot of people left feeling more confident about both candidates.

Tim Walz // Livia LaMarca, Assistant Opinions Editor

Back when the question of who would be the Democratic VP pick was still up in the air, I really wanted Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to beat out everyone else. I thought he was progressive enough on social issues to push the Democratic party in a positive direction while also meeting the needs of moderate Democrats who desired to see a “normal guy” on the ticket. So when he won the nomination, I was ecstatic. Walz really shines when discussing “kitchen table” issues like housing and healthcare, but his talking points on foreign affairs and immigration really paint a sad picture of just how far right the Overton Window has shifted as Democrats shift further conservative.

The start of the debate was rocky, with moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan immediately addressing the crisis in the Middle East. Walz repeated Harris’ talking points almost to a T, addressing the Israeli apartheid’s right to defend itself while minimally acknowledging the thousands of Palestinians, and now Lebanese citizens, who have been murdered. Israel is an American ally, and it is not quite as easy to impose an arms embargo as we would all like it to be, but the lack of recognition of the horror of Israel’s violence read cold and was incredibly disappointing to see on the national stage.

And then when answering the next question on immigration, Walz gave yet another Biden/Harris-esque answer that was hard on immigration and lacked acknowledgment of real issues, appealing to the Trumpian fear of immigrants that has swept the nation since his initial run against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Later on in the debate, he acknowledged the deplorable and dehumanizing language the Trump-Vance campaign uses against immigrants, but said a Harris administration would happily sign an even more strict deportation policy if Republicans pass it.

Fortunately, the passionate, somewhat progressive Tim Walz eventually came out to play — which is who we all wanted to see from the very beginning.

Tim Walz comes from humble, middle-class beginnings, and his absolute passion for the demographic shone through during his time on stage. He argued that immigrants are not to blame for the housing crisis but rather wealthy Wall Street companies buying up homes. He spoke at length about the child tax credits the Harris-Walz campaign is proposing and the importance of reducing childhood poverty — not just from a moral and ethical standpoint but how doing so will benefit taxpayers across the country. 

The key to this election will be winning the middle class, and Walz effectively, clearly and passionately shared policy that will benefit them better than Kamala Harris was able to get across during her debate with Trump. His whole face lit up when talking about these policy propositions, and you can clearly see how much he cares about alleviating the burden for those below the upper class.

One thing I was really hoping Walz was going to appeal to is the women’s vote, particularly those voting on the basis of abortion access. For a long time, Republicans held a big block of pro-life, single-issue voters. Post-Roe, a wave of pro-choice voters have come out of the woodwork to support Democratic candidates, and abortion access has been at the top of everyone’s minds since the Dobbs decision in 2022. 

Walz successfully affirmed that the Harris-Walz ticket is pro-women and pro-reinstating abortion access nationwide, reminding these voters of what is at stake in terms of abortion access if Trump and Vance win this election. He demolished the opinion that it should be left up to the states to decide, arguing that access to healthcare and life saving medicine needs to be accessible to all Americans and not be dependent on where you live.

I thought Walz did an excellent job when talking about the issues that got him on the ticket in the first place, but he floundered and appeared cold when addressing the issues outside of his normal scope of work as Minnesota Governor. One thing is clear, though —  this man is passionate about taking care of the American people and helping all those he can.