As an avid Democrat, I was energized after Kamala Harris' debate with Donald Trump. Harris clearly won, and she made some great criticisms of Trump that sent chills up my progressive spine.
Last night's VP debate between Tim Walz and J.D. Vance felt much different.
At first I thought it was boring in a good way. However, as the debate neared its conclusion I felt that Walz was being overly Minnesota nice. Plus, he didn't seem comfortable on stage, while Vance appeared to be enjoying himself, which bothered me.
The only real zinger that the Democrats I follow on Twitter were talking about today (I'm going to keep calling X that, since I miss the old pre-Elon Musk Twitter) came at the very end of the debate, when Vance refused to answer Walz' question to him about whether he agreed that Trump lost the 2020 election.
That was Walz' best moment. He showed some passion, which was a pleasing counterpoint to his comment at the beginning of this video that he and Vance agreed on a lot. Ordinarily I'd applaud this bit of bipartisanship. However, while Vance was better behaved in the debate than I thought he'd be, he still lied many times.
Walz should have done a better job at fact-checking Vance, since the moderators only made one attempt at this when it was pointed out that the Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio that Vance said were causing problems for the city were there legally. I would have been happier if Walz wasn't so agreeable and showed more fire when attacking Trump and defending Harris.
One of Vance's most annoying lies was his assertion that Trump defended the Affordable Care Act when he was president, while the truth is that Trump did his best to have the Affordable Care Act repealed or weakened.
I thought Vance was the better debater, not surprising given his Yale Law School degree. However, I view lying during a debate as being akin to cheating, so I can't say that Vance won the debate. Early surveys show that those who watched the debate thought it was basically a draw, with an average of 48% believing Vance won and 46% believing Walz won.
So likely the debate won't have much of an effect on the Harris-Trump race. At the moment Harris is narrowly predicted by Nate Silver (57%) and 538 (58%) to win -- essentially a toss-up with a slight tilt toward Harris.
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