It is a truism that US vice-presidential debates rarely affect the electoral outcome. After Tim Walz’s lacklustre showing against JD Vance on Tuesday night, Democrats will be praying that still holds.
Political betting site Polymarket gave Walz a 70 per cent chance of winning at the start of the debate. By the end he was at just 33 per cent. It will be some consolation that the TV viewing numbers are likely to be far lower than the audience of almost 70mn that tuned into Kamala Harris’s encounter with Donald Trump last month.
Either way, the Vance-Walz debate was probably the last of the 2024 presidential campaign. Trump has shown no interest in agreeing to Harris’s call for a second encounter, understandable given how much blood she drew in their first.
In terms of how America votes on November 5, Tuesday’s “veep debate” may not even rank as the second-most impactful event of the day. The first was Iran’s missile attack on Israel and the threat of a wider Middle Eastern war. If sustained, the jump in crude oil on Tuesday will feed into higher US fuel prices and hit consumer sentiment, which would harm Harris. Any impression of Middle East chaos is also likely to play into Trump’s hands.
The second-most important event on Tuesday was arguably Trump pulling out of CBS’s widely watched 60 Minutes show next week and Harris confirming her participation. How she comes across in that interview, and the fact of Trump’s absence, is likely to have more sway than the Vance-Walz debate with the few million American voters who are still undecided.
Nevertheless the vice-presidential encounter offered several pointers on the nature of this election. Three stood out.
The first was Vance’s confidence and fluency. The Ohio senator also told some whopping lies. Of these, Vance’s claim that he had never supported a federal abortion ban and that Trump strengthened the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare”, were most egregious. Vance has consistently backed a national ban and other restrictions on women’s bodily autonomy. Trump tried to abolish the ACA multiple times.
Vance also conspicuously dodged questions about whether the 2020 election was stolen. His evasions may come back to haunt him. Overall though, Vance evidently took on board widespread advice to come across as more likeable. The debate was a mirror image of last month’s Trump-Harris encounter. Both vice-presidential candidates were civil throughout.
Second, Walz was nervous and often faltering. The Harris-Walz campaign has taken some pride in avoiding mainstream media interviews and press conferences. Walz’s exposure has mostly been in soft settings with friendly journalists. Vance, by contrast, has been touring the Sunday morning shows almost every week. His slick evasions and polished whataboutisms betrayed many hours of practice on live TV.
The Harris-Walz campaign may come to regret their preference for gentler surroundings. America’s relatively small but potentially decisive share of wavering voters repeatedly tell pollsters that they want more information about Harris’s policies. That Trump has supplied much less policy detail is striking. But nobody said politics was fair.
Finally, Tuesday night offered a glimpse into one of America’s possible futures. Given the running mates’ respective age differences with their bosses, Vance’s performance was more significant. At 40, he is barely half Trump’s age. The prospect that a second term Trump would yield to a Vance administration before it ends is significantly higher than that of Harris giving way to Walz, who is several months older than her.
Vance conveyed Trumpism in its palatable form. He stood up for every tenet of Trumpism, including his refusal to accept that Biden won the 2020 election. But his mien was tempered and reasonable.
Many Republicans last year invested great hope in Florida’s Ron DeSantis as the man who could uphold Trumpism without Trump. DeSantis turned out to be a dud in debates and on the hustings. Vance, on the other hand, has a future whatever happens next month. Liberals are right to fear Vance; he is a hardline Christian nationalist. After Tuesday night, however, they would be rash to dismiss him.