Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz felt like a civil and relatively restrained conversation about the issues at the top of American voters’ minds going into the 5 November election.
In that, it was unlike the two presidential debates earlier this year.
The two men spent much more time attacking the other’s running mate than each other during 90-plus minutes on the CBS News stage in New York.
Walz had a shaky start but hit his stride when talking about abortion and the Capitol riot.
But the tempered, policy-focused debate, with few political body blows, probably served Vance – a polished public speaker – best in the end.
If Vance was picked because he puts ideological meat on the bones of Trump’s conservative populism, on Tuesday night he put a polite, humble face on them, as well.
“Something these guys do is they make a lot of claims about if Donald Trump becomes president, all of these terrible consequences are going to ensue,” he said. “But in reality, Donald Trump was president. Inflation was low. Take home pay was higher.”
There were moments when the Republican candidate bristled at what he thought was unfair fact-checking from the two CBS moderators, and at one point microphones of both candidates were temporarily muted.
But for the most part, the exchanges on stage were even-tempered.
And there were several moments when the two men agreed on issues – and said so.
“There’s a lot of commonality here,” Walz said toward the end of the evening.
When Walz spoke of his 17-year-old witnessing a shooting at a community center, Vance seemed genuinely concerned.
“I’m sorry about that and I hope he’s doing OK,” he said. “Christ have mercy, it is awful.”
Cordial – but with a few clashes
The most vigorous disagreements came toward the end of the debate, on the topic of Trump’s repeated and false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Vance, when asked if Trump lost the last presidential election, dodged the question and criticised what he said was Kamala Harris’s censorship.
Walz quickly noted that it was a “damning non-answer”.
“To deny what happened on January 6, the first time an American president or anyone tried to overturn an election. this has got to stop,” he said. “It’s tearing our country apart.”
Walz went on to say that the only reason Mike Pence, Trump’s previous vice-president, was not on stage was because he certified President Joe Biden’s victory.
Vance had no answer to that, highlighting that beyond his friendly demeanour and agreeability, he would not break from Trump’s position.