J.D. Vance Shines, Tim Walz Stumbles

Happy Wednesday! Election Day is 34 days away. Fun fact: Last night’s vice presidential debate took place in CBS’ Studio 45, which has also hosted episodes of 60 Minutes and Captain Kangaroo.

Up to Speed

• Iran on Tuesday rained down ballistic missiles on Israel, including civilian population centers, in retaliation for the Jewish state’s killings of Tehran-backed terrorist leaders, Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign offered no immediate comment about the attack as she and President Joe Biden monitored the events in the Situation Room. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump blamed the current administration. “Under ‘President Trump,’ we had NO WAR in the Middle East, NO WAR in Europe, and Harmony in Asia, No Inflation, No Afghanistan Catastrophe,” he said in a statement. “Instead, we had PEACE. Now, War or the threat of War, is raging everywhere, and the two Incompetents running this Country are leading us to the brink of World War III. You wouldn’t trust Joe or Kamala to run a lemonade stand, let alone lead the Free World.”
• The political group Haley Voters for Harris is launching a seven-figure digital ad campaign, intending to target voters in all seven major battleground states who had supported Nikki Haley in this year’s Republican primaries, Dispatch Politics has learned. The organization’s political director, Craig Snyder, says the campaign will focus on the traditional “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, though ads will also run in North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. The ads, some of which were shared with Dispatch Politics, include direct appeals from conservative voters to support Kamala Harris and began running on social media sites and streaming services on Tuesday. 
• The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Tuesday moved the Texas Senate race between incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Rep. Colin Allred—whom former Rep. Liz Cheney recently endorsed—from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.” Cruz had a scare in 2018 when he beat challenger Beto O’Rourke by just more than 2.5 points, and recent polls for this year’s race have him up generally by 5 or fewer points. A Cruz loss would complicate Republicans’ plans to take the 51-49 Democratic-controlled chamber. The GOP is all but certain to pick up the seat currently held by Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia, meaning Republicans would need to flip only one Democratic seat if they hold all of theirs. If Cruz loses, they would need to flip two.

A New, Genteel J.D. Vance Bucks His Past Persona

NEW YORK—The split screen for Tuesday evening’s vice presidential debate told the story. Republican nominee J.D. Vance looked calm, collected, and confident. Democratic nominee Tim Walz looked uncomfortable, hurried, and nervous. And the reaction from surrogates for both campaigns backed that story up.

“J.D.’s debate performance tonight totally speaks for itself,” Donald Trump Jr. gushed to reporters in the spin room at CBS News headquarters in Manhattan. “It was an absolute masterclass performance.”

Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was not as effusive about his candidate. “Tim Walz is just a good guy,” Harrison told Dispatch Politics, when asked about the Minnesota governor’s (mostly) uneasy debate. “He’s an uncle that you just love, that is always there, that is going to say it to you straight, and say it to you honest—but you always like [him].” 

It’s rare that a debate between the No. 2s on a ticket is notable, let alone consequential. The most memorable moment from a VP debate, when Sen. Lloyd Bentsen told Sen. Dan Quayle in 1988 that his younger Republican opponent was “no Jack Kennedy,” didn’t stop Quayle’s running mate, George H.W. Bush, from carrying 40 states a few weeks later. There were no such fireworks or disastrous gaffes in New York on Tuesday.

Both Vance, 40, and Walz, 60, avoided attacking each other directly, often highlighting where they agreed with their opponent before emphasizing their obvious differences. They debated specific public policy issues, from foreign affairs to abortion rights to international trade, in a civil manner. But on style, there was no question that Vance, a senator from Ohio for less than two years but an experienced public speaker before entering politics, bested the terrified-looking Walz.

The second-term Minnesota governor, speaking quickly in detailed answers, stumbled over his words multiple times. Walz said he had become “friends with school shooters” and referred to “Israel” when he meant “Iran.” He struggled mightily with his answer when asked why he had not told the truth about being in China during the Tiananmen Square massacre, eventually settling on an explanation that he “misspoke.” And he whiffed on an opportunity to press Vance effectively on the Republican ticket’s spreading of falsehoods about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

“Sen. Vance, and it surprises me on this, talking about and saying, ‘I will create stories to bring attention to this.’ That vilified a large number of people who were here legally in the community of Springfield,” Walz said while Vance looked on. “The Republican governor said, it’s not true, don’t do it. There’s consequences for this, there’s con—.” As Walz cut himself off to redirect his focus toward Donald Trump’s immigration rhetoric, Vance briefly broke the fourth wall and glanced at the camera, as if recognizing Walz had failed to deliver the hit.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, an up-and-coming Texas Democrat who never misses an opportunity to deliver a clean hit on her Republican sparring partners, argued it was understandable—and actually preferable—that Walz seemed uneasy. “I absolutely believe that he was nervous,” she said in response to a question from Dispatch Politics during a brief interview in the spin room. “Honestly, I don’t know that you should be running for vice president and not be a little nervous, under these circumstances. It’s evidence that he understands how high the stakes are.”

For Vance, the debate offered an opportunity to reset his image as a “weird” and “creepy” right-winger. When asked why his position on national abortion legislation has shifted since he first ran for Senate in Ohio in 2022, Vance suggested the state’s overwhelming support for a referendum restoring Roe v. Wade’s protections for abortion rights changed his mind. 

“The people of Ohio voted overwhelmingly, by the way, against my position. And I think that what I learned from that, Norah, is that we’ve got to do a better job at winning back people’s trust,” Vance said, arguing that he and Trump are pushing for more access to child care and fertility treatments.

It was the sort of answer that might frustrate committed pro-lifers in the GOP ranks. But it cut against Vance’s reputation for being needlessly insensitive and combative, such as in comments about “childless cat ladies”—a phrase that neither the moderators nor Walz brought up on Tuesday. Republicans confessed relief that Vance seemed to move away from this perception, gushing that this is the man they have come to know over the past few years.

“Over the last 20-something months, we’ve had the opportunity to get to know he and [his wife, Usha,] not just as people but as parents, and get to know their vision and their heart and the way they approach things,”  Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama told Dispatch Politics. “I was excited for America to get to see that tonight. I mean, he is a brilliant individual who loves his country.”  

It wasn’t until the final half-hour that Walz found his footing, in large part due to Vance’s own inability to directly and clearly answer questions about the 2020 election and whether he would seek to challenge the election results this November if they do not go Trump’s way. 

“Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020,” Vance said. “And my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully in the public square. And that’s all I’ve said. And that’s all that Donald Trump has said. Remember, he said that on January 6, the protesters ought to protest peacefully. And on January 20, what happened? Joe Biden became the president. Donald Trump left the White House.”

Vance went on to argue that it was Harris, not Trump, who was a threat to democracy because he claimed she “engaged in censorship on an industrial scale”—asserting that she would “like to censor people who engage in misinformation” and suggesting she did this “during COVID.” That seemed to be referring to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent admission to Congress in a letter that the Biden administration pressured the company into “censoring” content about the pandemic on its platforms.

Walz seemed to come alive in the discussion, pointing out that Trump lost the 2020 election but has refused to admit so. “I’m going to thank Sen. Vance. I think this is the conversation they want to hear, and I think there’s a lot of agreement,” Walz said of the preceding hour or so of debate. “But this is one that we are miles apart on. This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen.”

The Democrat then turned to question Vance: “Did he lose the 2020 election?”

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance responded. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”

Walz turned, and, looking confident and straight to the camera, said: “That is a damning nonanswer.” It took Team Harris less than 12 hours to turn the moment into a campaign advertisement.

Eyes on the Trail

• President Joe Biden today travels to North Carolina and South Carolina to view the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in both states. Per the White House, the trip will include an aerial tour, operational briefings, and discussions with first responders.
• Vice President Kamala Harris today travels to Augusta, Georgia, to tour damage caused by Hurricane Helene (with a similar trip to storm-ravaged North Carolina also in the works.) According to the White House, Harris will receive a briefing on recovery efforts and provide an update on federal assistance. Harris was originally scheduled to join her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on a campaign swing through Pennsylvania, the Associated Press reported, but scrapped those plans after the severe impact of the storm became apparent. She heads to Michigan and Wisconsin later this week.
• Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio will deliver remarks this afternoon in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The Republican vice presidential nominee is expected to focus his remarks on Trump’s economic agenda. Later in the evening, Vance will host a similar Trump campaign event in Marne, Michigan.
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz heads to central Pennsylvania this afternoon for a three-stop, Harris campaign bus tour. The Democratic vice presidential nominee will stop in Harrisburg, York, and Reading. In York, Walz will be joined by John Fetterman, the commonwealth’s freshman Democratic senator.

Notable and Quotable

“I’ve enjoyed tonight’s debate, and I think there was a lot of commonality here. And I’m sympathetic to misspeaking on things.”

—Gov. Tim Walz during CBS News’ vice presidential debate, October 1, 2024