Members of the media elite acknowledged after Tuesday’s debate that vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) was the undisputed winner of the showdown with vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D).
Heading into the debate, media members appeared to believe Vance would perform well considering his experience of winning a bruising Senate Republican primary in 2022. Vance’s performance fulfilled their expectations.
“Vance’s Dominant Debate Performance Shows Why He’s Trump’s Running Mate,” Ross Douthat titled a New York Times column:
Vance’s performance has included a dose of self-conscious humanization, an attempted reintroduction to his blue-collar background and striking personal biography after weeks of effective Democratic attacks on his right-wing podcast commentary. It’s included some careful rhetorical tap dancing and policy jujitsu on issues like climate change and abortion. But mostly it’s just been an effective prosecution of the case against the Biden-Harris administration, focusing relentlessly on encouraging viewers to be nostalgic for the economy, the immigration landscape and the relative foreign-policy calm of Trump’s term.
In the Washington Post, 14 of the 22 paper’s swing-state panel said Vance shredded Walz:
Among the 12 voters who leaned toward former President Donald Trump and Vance before the debate, five said they would “definitely” vote for Trump afterward. Seven said they would still probably vote for Trump.
And among the nine voters who leaned toward Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz before the debate, six said they would definitely support Harris after the debate. Two said they would probably vote for Harris. One switched to probably backing Trump.
Finally, among the two voters who were undecided before the debate, one said they would probably vote for Harris and one said they would vote for a third-party candidate.
CNN’s debate panel acknowledged that Vance landed several devastating blows to Harris during the debate, leaving Walz unable to respond.
“When JD Vance said one of the many, many things he really hit Kamala Harris on, not Tim Walz, but Kamala Harris, he [Walz] didn’t respond because he clearly had things in his mind,” CNN anchor Dana Bash said.
“I agree,” Anchor Jake Tapper said. “I mean, JD Vance is much more experienced at this, at public speaking, at defending himself, at pivoting.”
New York Magazine’s political columnist Jonathan Chait admitted that Vance was “smart” and “filled with confidence.”
“It was damning and a perfect indication of what a slippery, dangerous, and unprincipled figure Vance is,” Chait said, attacking him without evidence. “But for most of the night, Walz could only barely keep up with him.”
Scott Jennings, a senior CNN political commentator, declared in a Los Angeles Times column, “JD Vance won the debate with Tim Walz, hands down.”
“Vance delivered in spades,” he wrote, continuing:
On issue after issue, Vance delivered smooth, well-constructed arguments while Walz often answered haltingly, like an online video struggling to buffer on a slow Wi-Fi connection. There hasn’t been a vice presidential candidate this out of his depth since Adm. James Stockdale delivered his famous ‘who am I and why am I here?’ line in the 1992 campaign.
Former White House communications director and Trump-hater Farah Griffin acknowledged Vance’s performance showed him to be “an incredibly effective communicator.”
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