What to know about the Vance-Walz VP debate

At the vice presidential debate Tuesday night, Sen. JD Vance faced one fundamental challenge: How to make a radical right-wing agenda sound like middle-American common sense.

Judging by the polls, America’s voters are not enthusiastic about the Biden-Harris administration’s record. And on the issues they rank highest — such as immigration and the economy — they have more trust in the Republican ticket’s leadership.

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).

At the end of the vice presidential debate, Gov. Tim Walz asked Sen. JD Vance a pointed question: Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? Vance’s response: “Tim, I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?”

There is a clear right answer — that the 2020 presidential election was in fact legitimate — and Vance refused to offer it. It was, as Walz immediately noted, “A damning non-answer,” one that showed viewers who JD Vance is and what he stands for.

Shortly after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her running mate last month, a photograph of the Minnesota governor with an adorable piglet nestled in his arms at the 2019 Minnesota State Fair went viral, to the delight of Democratic voters, activists, and pundits alike.

Earlier this month, Walz made a campaign stop at a dairy farm where he bottle-fed a baby cow, tweeting, “Made a new friend.”

When Vice President Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate, many pundits lamented her decision. In their view, the Democratic nominee should have chosen a vice presidential candidate who could mitigate her liabilities, and balance out her party’s ticket — such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

After all, Harris had been a liberal senator from one of America’s most left-wing states and then had run an exceedingly progressive primary campaign in 2020. To win over swing-state undecideds, she needed to demonstrate her independence from her party’s most radical elements. And selecting the popular governor of a purple state — who had defied the Democratic activist base on education policy and Israel’s war in Gaza— would do just that.

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have their fair share of disagreements about policy and politics.

But they both agree that Tim Walz is an excellent vice presidential nominee.

In a bid to undercut Vice President Kamala Harris’s newly announced running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Republicans are mounting attacks on his military record. The charges, which a closer look suggests are misleading or exaggerated, are a notable escalation against the Democratic ticket by the Trump campaign.

The attacks began in earnest on August 7, when Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, sought to tout his own military experience compared to Walz’s. Prior to running for Congress, Walz served for 24 years in the Army National Guard, while Vance served for four years in the Marine Corps. Neither has seen combat.

Tim Walz was just over a year into his first term as Minnesota governor when a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd in May 2020, touching off a generation-defining summer of global protests against police brutality and racial inequality.

Four years later, Walz’s handling of the demonstrations — which included mass unrest in Minnesota’s largest cities — is under new scrutiny after Vice President Kamala Harris tapped the governor to be her running mate on Tuesday.

Since his selection as former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance has developed a reputation for being a bit strange.

News articles and social media alike are riddled with strange Vance comments: his belief that “childless cat ladies” are running America into the ground, his hostility to no-fault divorce, and his choice to describe a neo-monarchist blogger as a notable intellectual influence. Even Democratic politicians are getting in on the act, with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker telling CNN that he “has a weird view of America, honestly.”

Former President Donald Trump has lately been trying to distance himself from Project 2025, claiming it was cooked up by the “severe right” and that he doesn’t know anything about it.

But it turns out the severe right is coming from inside the house.

Donald Trump’s allies have laid out sweeping plans to reshape the executive branch of the federal government if he is returned to power, plans that involve firing perhaps tens of thousands of career civil servants and replacing them with handpicked MAGA allies.

But how far, exactly, would Trump go in trying to tear down what he calls the “deep state?” The answer hasn’t been clear.

I’m no fan of Hillbilly Elegy, the 2020 movie starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close, but when I picked up the book it’s based on recently, in light of rumors that its author, J.D. Vance, would be Donald Trump’s pick for vice president, I expected it to feel more substantive than its screen adaptation.

At one time, liberal and conservative centrists alike hailed Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir of making it out of rural, poverty-stricken Appalachia, transforming himself from a tempestuous teen into a successful Yale law school grad.

I met Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s new choice for vice president, in the summer of 2022. I was covering a conservative conference in Israel, and Vance was the surprise VIP attraction. We chatted for a bit about the connections between right-wing movements across the world, and what American conservatives could learn from foreign peers. He was friendly, thoughtful, and smart — much smarter than the average politician I’ve interviewed.

Yet his worldview is fundamentally incompatible with the basic principles of American democracy.