The Campaigns Need Younger People to Vote. Did the V.P. Debate Help?

At three colleges, there were snacks, big screens and homework assignments. But energy and enthusiasm were sparse — and by the end, even more so.

Listen to this article · 6:03 min Learn more

Share full article

Debates between vice-presidential candidates are usually low-impact events, and the debate between JD Vance, left, and Tim Walz did not break tradition.

In the pivotal battleground of Wisconsin, where presidential elections are won or lost by only tens of thousands of votes, students like those at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside are highly sought after.

But getting young people interested in voting has always been a tall order. And on Tuesday night, that job did not get any easier after the vice-presidential debate between Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.

“This is long, huh?” Grant Pitts, a senior who is president of the Parkside student government, said to a room full of students who groaned in agreement.

Debates between vice-presidential candidates are usually low-impact events, even if they can deliver a memorable moment once a decade or so, like Sarah Palin’s wink to the camera in 2008 or Lloyd Bentsen’s humbling of Dan Quayle in 1988.

Tuesday night did not deliver one of those moments, at least to students at three colleges in the closely contested swing states of Wisconsin and Georgia. Some students, jaded with politics altogether, seemed to have decided well before the debate that it would not be must-see TV. Many said they had already settled on a candidate, and that there was little either Mr. Vance or Mr. Walz could say to change their minds.

At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, only a handful of people showed up for a watch party at the student union that had been advertised online and in the school newspaper well before Tuesday.

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.