After Donald Trump’s ill-fated debate against Kamala Harris where vigorously defended his crowd sizes and lied about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio eating pets, the bar was relatively low for J.D. Vance during Tuesday’s debate with Tim Walz. However, he not only exceeded it but surpassed it among Republican operatives I spoke with. One in Vance’s orbit texted a GIF of a baseball player hitting a home run when asked for an assessment of the debate shortly after it ended.
Other operatives from across the party kvelled about the Ohio senator’s performance, which they thought seemed particularly outstanding when compared to an at times stumbling performance from his Democratic rival, the Minnesota governor. Some couldn’t help but spent the aftermath of the debate glued to their social media feeds and CNN, reveling in what they perceived as Democratic bedwetting
Another Republican in Vance world said simply “We killed it.” The one moment Democrats celebrated during the debate was Vance’s refusal to answer a question about whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Republicans brushed that off. “They will make it all about Jan 6. But that doesn’t move the needle.”
Walz was surprisingly underwhelming on the debate stage—-particularly his rambling answer when asked about his repeated statements that he had been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989. Walz initially described himself as a “knucklehead” before eventually conceding that he misspoke at times.
One establishment Republican hoped Vance’s performance would boost Trump among wavering voters. “I do think there are people who aren’t psyched about Trump’s performance or the idea of voting for him who will like what they saw tonight,” they said. After all, Vance’s rollout as Trump’s running mate had been notoriously bumpy as he was forced to defend a series of inflammatory comments that he had made on right wing podcasts over the years including one in 2021 when he complained about the influence of “childless cat ladies” running the country.
The Ohio senator’s image hasn’t notably softened since then as he has adopted the traditional role of running mate as an attack dog. However, on Tuesday, he was the one that pulled his punches—-at least compared to Trump who was repeatedly deriding Walz as “Tampon Tim” on social media. Instead, he came across as “exceptionally competent and conspicuously congenial,” in the words of the establishment Republican, especially compared to the public perception of him prior to the debate when he was viewed less favorably than any other candidate on a national ticket.
There is uncertainty though whether any of this mattered. It is a vice presidential debate and voters don’t vote for the number two on the ticket. Traditionally, vice presidential debates have almost no impact on the presidential election. After all, the most memorable moment in any vice presidential debate was Lloyd Bentsen’s withering putdown of Dan Quayle in 1988 where he mocked Quayle’s comparison of himself to John F. Kennedy. “I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy,” said Bentsen. The moment has gone down in history but Bentsen, and his running mate, Michael Dukakis, lost the election by a hefty margin.”
As one senior Capitol Hill Republican pointed out “One can debate without any proof as to whether or not the needle moved tonight. What is clear is that this was a best case scenario for Trump and a worst case scenario for Harris.”
