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Midwestern manners were on display Tuesday night when GOP Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz went head to head in their first and likely only debate before the November election.
At the very least, it was refreshing to see a more policy-centric, polite but firm decorum between two adults. They both walked out with a warm smile and a friendly handshake, with their supportive spouses by their side To the American public, it was a refreshing sight after over a decade of petulant tantrums and mudslinging.
J.D. Vance may have won the debate by measure of eloquence, sharpness, and in his case, the redemptive ground he gained his party through his talking points.
But when it comes to politics, talk is cheap. And when it comes to action, Walz takes the cake.
J.D. Vance’s Master Class in Rhetoric
Vance, a sharp debater, presented as poised and articulate, especially compared to Donald Trump’s more erratic performance in earlier debates.
His polished presentation and matter of speech gave Republicans a reason to cheer, especially in how he was able to reframe some of Trump’s debate embarrassments.
However, Vance’s ability to win over the audience came largely from his mastery of rhetoric — not from having a track record that could back his claims.
Still, Republicans have reason to celebrate Vance’s performance. J.D. Vance made up some of the ground lost by Trump after his disastrous debate with Kamala Harris. The former President spent most of the time pouting, failed to speak to his policies, before topping off with the unhinged claim that immigrants are “eating the dogs” in Ohio, before being corrected by the debate’s moderators.
Vance came off much more reasonable, moderate, and poised than his would-be boss should the GOP win the election.
To both of their credit, Senator Vance and Governor Walz spent most of the Vice Presidential debate discussing political issues in a way the nation hasn’t ostensibly seen since 2012. When Trump entered the political sphere in 2016, political discourse descended into childish mudslinging, for which is still hasn’t fully recovered.
Vance and Walz often started their rebuttals focusing on common ground rather than vitriolic insults. In fact, the two men positively acknowledged the others’ points a total of 16 times, often aligning on certain aspects before contrasting where they differ.
Vance Cleans Up Trump’s Debate Mess
Vance represented Trump’s first presidency in a better light than Trump himself could have. He highlighted some of the Trump Administration’s successes, including successes in foreign policy and tariffs. The Biden Administration, initially planning to roll back Trump’s tariffs back, later reviewed, adopted, and even built upon them.
Trump attempted to spotlight the relative success of his tariff policies, but like many points that night, he missed the mark. Trump mostly spoke of the tariffs in a self-congratulatory way without contextualizing how they impacts the average American worker.
Vance bridged the gap.
“One thing that Joe Biden did is he continued some of the Trump tariffs that protected American manufacturing jobs. And it’s the one issue, the most pro-worker part of the Biden administration,” Vance said.
“If you’re trying to employ slave laborers in China at $3 a day, you’re going to do that and undercut the wages of American workers unless our country stands up for itself and says you’re not accessing our markets unless you’re paying middle class Americans a fair wage,” he added.
Walz Weaker at Rhetoric, Despite Stronger Record
What is widely seen as Walz’s weakest moment could also be seen as his strongest.
That moment involved a now-disputed claim suggesting that Walz was living in Asia during the events leading up to Tiananmen Square in May of 1989. Walz had actually arrived to Hong Kong in August of that year for a year-long stay teaching English abroad.
Walz never claimed to have been at Tiananmen Square.
“Living in Asia at the time, I was profoundly affected by these events and the Chinese people’s struggle for reform,” Walz said on the 25th anniversary of the crackdown.
Notably, Walz made the claim 25 years after the event in question.
The pang of shame in Walz’s face while self deprecatingly calling himself a “knucklehead” demonstrates the type of accountability that should earn him trust — not burn it. Still, the question seemed to trip Walz up, not only in his long-winded answer but also in his confidence thereafter.
Vance’s Skilled Sidesteps
Vance handled his much-more-loaded, recent, relevant, layered and ethically dubious character question regarding his 180 from his prior position that running mate Donald Trump could be “America’s Hitler” and that “Trump thoroughly failed to deliver his economic populism” skillfully.
“I think there were a lot of things that we could have done better in the Trump administration the first round, if Congress was doing its job. I strongly believe, and I’ve been a United States Senator, that Congress is not just a high-class debating society,” Vance said. “It’s not just a forum for senators and congressmen to whine about problems. It’s a forum to govern.”
He pulled something similar on the topic of climate change.
According to a Pew Research poll, nearly 70% of Americans support the country moving towards carbon neutrality.
“Look, a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns. I think it’s important for us, first of all, to say Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water. We want the environment to be cleaner and safer, ” Senator Vance says. “But one of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions…Just for the sake of argument, let’s just say [carbon emissions are a concern] is true. So if we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people.”
Vance completely sidestepped the elephant in the room. He makes no mention of renewable energy sources or moving towards carbon neutrality, as the Biden-Harris Administration has done.
Instead, Vance elegantly walked a tightrope, appearing to care about environmental issues, positioning domestic fossil fuel sourcing as the most pragmatic way to achieve cleaner energy production while questioning the validity of climate change science — all at once.
Vance artfully danced around the issue of environmental policy, carefully balancing acknowledgment and doubt. Moreover, Vance has taken more than $350,000 in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.
Walz could have — and should have — hit harder on the topic. Minnesota is a nation-leading state on matters of environmental policy, carbon reduction, and natural conservation.
But he remained too humble on it, opting to criticize Trump’s dismissive comments on the matter. He should have instead leaned on his own stellar track record on this voter-popular topic. Under his leadership, Minnesota has passed 40 climate change and environment-related bills. Environmental groups applauded Kamala Harris for picking Gov. Walz as her running mate, including the Sierra Club.
Meanwhile, Vance is celebrated by the far-right group behind Project 2025. Their policies are so unpopular with the public, Trump himself tried to distance himself from.
Vance may be a rhetoric master. But at the end of the day, he is still championing wildly unpopular policies in smooth, eloquent packaging. While Vance pulled more weight for the Republicans last night, it’s mostly because of the trench Trump left the party in after the last debate.
There was no where to go but up.
