By Josh Siatkowski | Staff Writer
In a policy-heavy Oct. 1 debate, vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz surprisingly found a lot of common ground. But the most glaring shared trait is they are both held back by their running mates.
Being offered the job of vice president by their respective running mates gives Vance and Walz a huge career boost. The prospective presidents, however, seem to have put a glass ceiling on how high it can lift these two men.
For Vance, the issue comes from having to defend — whether he believes it or not — the often baseless claims of former President Trump. For Walz, the challenge is defending Vice President Harris as she continues to be tight-lipped on policy plans.
The debate, hosted by CBS, was a perfect example of a Midwestern clash. Vance a native of Ohio and Walz of Minnesota, said as many as 10 times that they agreed with each other. All of the weighty issues — immigration, gun violence, home prices and even abortion — were met with civility. The debate, though considered to have a positive tone by 88% of viewers, also offered painful reminders that the refreshingly courteous dialogue on display last week was only a break from the current political climate.
Debate reviews slightly favored Vance, with 42% of viewers saying he won compared to Walz’s 41%. The reality, despite attempts of right and left-wing analysts to spin the debate, is that both candidates performed pretty well in the eyes of most Americans. That is, when they didn’t have to cover the messes of their running mates.
For Vance, his weakest moment came almost undoubtedly at the end of the debate. The 40-year-old marine turned venture capitalist turned Ohio senator looked ready to close an overall solid night. He spoke fluidly, answering each question with clarity and substance and gave an educated twist to Trump’s policies. However, at the end of the night, Walz turned to Vance and asked directly whether Trump lost the 2020 election.
Vance gave a dodgy response, saying he was “focused on the future.” Walz got the last word, calling it a “damning non-answer.”
Vance’s opinion of the 2020 election’s validity has been under fire recently due to a 2022 video that shows him agreeing that Trump won four years ago. However, Vance has a complicated track record with his now running mate. In 2016, he called Trump “America’s Hitler” and questioned whether he cared about the people he was running to serve. In 2020, Vance reversed his opinions as he vied for a Trump endorsement during his Ohio Senate campaign. Vance received the endorsement after admitting to Fox News that he “regretted” his prior statements.
Whether Vance believes the 2020 election was stolen or legitimate might not ever be known. And frankly, his comments at the debate don’t reveal anything about what he believes. There was little more the prospective vice president could say. Claiming the election results were false would be a terrible move for favorability ratings, as the proportion of people who disbelieve the results is hovering somewhere around 30%. But an admittance of defeat would be equally bad, as it would create a glaring disconnect between himself and Trump, who still denies the results of the 2020 election.
But the debate wasn’t the only time Vance has put himself in a painful situation on behalf of his running mate. For the entire summer, Vance embraced his role as an “attack dog” for the Trump campaign, vigorously defending against media attacks. But the role he assumed tanked his favorability rating to -14% before the debate.
The bottom line for Vance is this: he is a bright guy who has been able to explain Trump’s policy vision in an articulate manner. But his subordination to the former president is harming his favorability and forcing him to answer incriminating questions.
Tim Walz is not entirely elevated by his running mate, either. The Minnesota governor had some missteps in the debate attributable to his own nervousness, like stumbling through his opening statement and struggling to answer a question about whether he was really in China during the time of the Tiananmen Square protests.
While Walz did find his footing, he too had to deal with the faults of his running mate. Maybe that challenge is best exemplified by what Vance told him early in the debate:
“Honestly, Tim, I think you’ve got a tough job here,” Vance said. “You’ve got to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t deliver lower inflation, which, of course, he did. And then you’ve simultaneously got to defend Kamala Harris’s atrocious economic record.”
Walz’s big issue is that when dealt blows like these, he has no way to defend the Vice President. After all, how can he defend her economic plan when Harris herself articulates it with “word saying gibberish,” in the words of Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan.
While Walz did perform well against digs at immigration, gun control and abortion, he was clearly under-resourced for any talk of the economy — an issue many Americans care the most about.
Perhaps these two only seem held back because of the nature of the vice presidency. Walz and Vance themselves have limited impact and like all vice presidents, spend most of the campaign season acting as high-level groupies. Maybe they seem held back because attacking an opponent’s policy means they can leave the job of crafting an alternative to the president.
But the biggest disparity between these men and their running mates was that the former seemed exceptionally human on Oct. 1. It might be the only glimpse of that humanity we get for the rest of this election, but it provides a glimmer of hope for 2028.
