Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. And neither is the selection of J.D. Vance as its vice presidential candidate. -- despite a slick performance in his debate with Walz.
Sean Craig at The Daily Beast:
Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy couldn’t help but let his voice slip up a quarter of an octave as he read out the results of a Politico/Focaldata snap poll that showed likely voters were split 50/50 over who won Tuesday’s debate between vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz.
Republican commentators and MAGA spectators alike rejoiced Tuesday evening after Vance submitted a polished performance, seemingly expecting a public groundswell of support would emerge for former president Donald Trump's running mate.
...
“Politico just published a snap poll… people found it a tie, a 50/50 tie,” he said, his voice trending high and befuddled. Even worse for the onetime Jimmy Carter supporter turned Republican Trump voter was that Walz appeared to clean up with independents.
Dead even: POLITICO snap poll shows no decisive winner in VP debate 👉 https://t.co/KnqnCM6UuV pic.twitter.com/ytlNpuwM6S
— POLITICO (@politico) October 2, 2024
The vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance on Tuesday was something of a stalemate, though it did feature several striking moments and offered an interesting preview into what presidential politics might look like once Donald Trump is off the stage.
It isn’t clear yet how genuinely undecided voters responded to the debate — a CBS poll afterward showed 42 percent of debate watchers thought Vance won and 41 percent thought Walz did, while 17 percent thought it was a tie. A CNN poll showed 51 percent thought Vance won and 49 percent thought Walz did (CNN didn’t offer the “tie” option).
Scored purely on affect and debating technique — without regard to factual accuracy — Vance did a bit better. He stuck to his two-pronged strategy: first, to blame Kamala Harris for everything voters don’t like that has happened under the Biden administration; and second, to put a reasonable-seeming face on Trumpism.
In doing so, though, Vance said many misleading or totally untrue things, such as that Donald Trump saved Obamacare, that immigrants caused the US housing crisis, and that Trump was merely peacefully discussing “problems” with the 2020 election rather than blatantly trying to steal that election from the rightful winner, Joe Biden.
Walz’s performance was rockier, and while he had his moments — he spoke effectively about health care, abortion, and Trump’s threat to democracy — his answers were less disciplined and more scattershot. He seemed flatfooted by a question regarding his past, reportedly untrue claims to have been in Hong Kong at the time of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 – not exactly the most important and pressing issue of the day, but something he probably should have prepared a better answer for.
So, on points, Vance may have won by a nose. But he did so in a way that is unlikely to matter very much, if at all, for the presidential contest. In general, vice presidential debates very rarely impact the polls. And this particular debate lacked any breakout moment likely to dominate headlines for days in what’s become a very crowded October news environment (Middle East escalation, Hurricane Helene, the port strike).
Media will give Vance the win tonight, which will stir the pot in interesting ways.
— Mike Murphy (@murphymike) October 2, 2024
First, neurotic Dems will have usual panic. (Actually useful because I fear over-confidence in D world.)
Mega-Question: how Trump reacts to Vance getting far, far better debate review than him.
