The vice-presidential candidates largely avoided personal attacks, with JD Vance showing a knack for revising history while Tim Walz appeared to battle nerves.
Listen to this article · 4:43 min Learn more
- Share full article
Gov. Tim Walz and Senator JD Vance attempted to bring more substance to the big themes of the campaigns while introducing themselves to voters during the vice-presidential debate Tuesday night.
In the only vice-presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Senator JD Vance of Ohio engaged in a policy-heavy battle of ideas, clashing on the economy, immigration, abortion and protecting American democracy.
The exchanges generally lacked the personal vitriol that punctuated former President Donald J. Trump’s debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. Instead the running mates sought to bring more substance to the big themes of the campaigns while introducing themselves to voters. On more than one occasion there were flashes of apparent comity, with the candidates acknowledging that they shared common goals of broadening access to child care and reducing gun violence.
After the debate, political analysts, pundits and observers on social media noted that Mr. Vance, a Yale-educated lawyer, offered a crisp delivery — even if he was deftly shading the truth — and that he was generally more genial than he is often portrayed by the Harris campaign. However, Mr. Vance struggled when pressed over Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, refused to answer a direct question from Mr. Walz about whether Mr. Trump lost and defended his running mate’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by saying Mr. Trump peacefully transferred power to President Biden.
Mr. Walz at times appeared anxious and stumbled when trying to explain misstatements about his background. He seemed to gain his footing toward the end of the debate when the conversation moved to abortion and health policy while Mr. Vance tried to revise history and suggested that Mr. Trump was a savior of the Affordable Care Act (he tried unsuccessfully to repeal it).
Here is a sampling of the reaction.
“Gov. Walz is not prosecuting the case rather it’s a nice-fest. If you agree with Vance on so much then why should we vote for you?” said Symone D. Sanders Townsend, an MSNBC host and former press secretary for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.
“I was missing the magic and the organic spontaneity of Tim Walz,” said Jen Psaki, a former press secretary for President Biden.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Source: nytimes.com
