Zero combat. The only debate between the vice presidential candidates in the 2024 elections and the last of the presidential campaign ended without a clear winner. What was intuited when observing the face to face has been endorsed by the survey carried out by CBS News, the channel that organized the duel between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz. There was a technical tie, according to said survey.
42% of those surveyed say the Republican candidate is the winner. 41% give the victory to the Democrat, while 17% conclude that there was a tie. Overall, the viewers’ responses therefore point to a balanced debate between the two. The survey was conducted among 1,630 likely voters who watched the debate. The winner was, in fact, the tone of the debate, which 88% of those surveyed considered positive and only 12% considered negative.
To some extent, that’s a win for Vance, the least popular of the four contenders for president and vice president. The Ohio senator exceeded expectations and barely made any mistakes throughout the debate. His worst moment came near the end, when he was unable to recognize Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 elections and tried to downplay the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, presenting what happened as a peaceful transfer of power. Except on that occasion, Vance tried to show his more moderate side and avoid the most problematic issues.
Walz, on the other hand, started with the advantage of greater popularity, but was unable to take advantage of it in the debate. Her worst moment was when she had to admit, when questioned by one of the moderators, that she “was wrong” when she said she was in China during the Tiananmen massacre. The governor of Minnesota went from less to more during the duel, but he did not finish showing his most authentic side.
According to the CBS News poll, Democrats’ weight among debate viewers was overall slightly higher than among voters nationwide. Among those surveyed were 39% Democrats, 33% Republicans and 28% independents. Heading into the debate, Democrats were more enthusiastic about Walz than Republicans were about Vance, which perhaps explains the Democratic leaning of tonight’s audience. That, in addition, gives extra value to the result achieved by the Republican.
Other poll results favor Walz a little more. In a white-glove face-to-face, in which both showed empathy and avoided personal attacks, both candidates sounded “reasonable” to the majority of viewers, instead of “extremist”, but in that sense the result of the Democrat (reasonable according to 74% and extremist, according to 26%) is better than that of the Republican (65% to 35%).
Walz also did better when respondents were asked whether the candidates are prepared to be president of the United States, if necessary. On that question, the Democrat achieved a favorable balance of 60%-40%, while the Republican remained at 55%-45%. The majority of supporters of each party considered that only their party’s vice presidential candidate is prepared, while the majority of independents said that both are.
Regarding the issues up for debate, Walz won on abortion (62%-38%) and health care (59%-41%), while Vance narrowly won on immigration (52%-48%) and the economy (51% %-49%) and the two were tied (50%-50%) regarding the Middle East conflict.
Both candidates improved their overall image among voters compared to before the debate. Walz went from 52% favorable and 41% unfavorable to 60%-35%. The number of viewers who had a net negative opinion of Vance before the debate was higher (40%-54%), but after the debate slightly more had a favorable opinion of him than those who had an unfavorable one (49%- 47%).
The evaluation of the campaigns
As a whole, then, the survey shows a balance between both. When those who speak out are the respective campaigns, to no one’s surprise, there is no doubt: the Democrats give Tim Walz the winner and the Republicans, JD Vance.
“Tonight, Governor Walz demonstrated exactly why Vice President Harris chose him: he is a leader who cares about the issues that matter most to Americans,” he said in a statement. Jen O’Malley Dillon, chairwoman of the Harris-Walz campaign. “In the debate, Americans could see a true contrast: a direct candidate, focused on sharing real information and solutions, and a politician who spent the entire night defending the division and failures of Donald Trump. On every issue—the economy, health care, foreign policy, reproductive freedom, and gun violence—Governor Walz won. She spoke passionately about the vice president’s vision for a new path forward for the country. “And in what was the most critical moment of the entire debate, which came in their final exchange, he defended our Constitution, while Vance admitted that he had put Trump before the country,” he added.
Quite the opposite is the opinion of the spokespersons for the Republican presidential campaign, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita: “Senator Vance unequivocally won the debate and in a dominant manner. “It was the best debate performance by any vice presidential candidate in history,” they said in a note. “Vance told the truth, eloquently presented the case against Kamala Harris’ failed record, and effectively held Governor Tim Walz accountable for his lies on behalf of the Harris-Biden administration. Senator Vance also perfectly articulated the Trump-Vance vision of making America safe again, with his plan to launch the largest mass deportation operation in history; make America strong again with a foreign policy agenda of peace through strength; and make America rich again by cutting taxes, freeing US energy dominance, and ending inflation,” they added.
There was also a tie between the statements, therefore.
