The stakes were high going into Tuesday’s first (and only) vice presidential debate between Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota and Republican Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, given the 2024 presidential election is just over a month away. No, the faceoff between two vice presidential candidates was never going to move the political needle quite as much as, say, Kamala v. Trump, but Tuesday’s meeting still had its highlights. Below, find the 5 biggest takeaways from the Walz vs. Vance debate.
The mute button was in use
While the Walz-Vance match-up was significantly more polite than Harris and Trump’s debate last month, it was still sort of satisfying to see two women—in this case, CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan—hit the mute button on both men when they spoke out of turn.
Vance and Walz were both pressed on past missteps
While Walz faced some tough questioning about newly unearthed contradictions to his claim that he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Vance was asked about once likening of Trump to “America’s Hitler.” Later on, Walz also directly asked Vance if Trump had lost the 2020 election—to which the senator gave what can only be described as a non-answer.
Walz (wisely) referenced his state’s record of restoring post-Roe abortion rights
“We are ranked first in healthcare for a reason. We trust women; we trust doctors,” Walz said of Minnesota after referencing real-life examples of abortion rights activists like Hadley Duvall being denied necessary reproductive care. Walz signed a bill intended to enshrine the right to abortion into the Minnesota state constitution in January 2023—making the contrast between his record on reproductive rights and the Trump-Vance campaign’s outlandish claims about abortion all the more clear.
Childcare costs were centered, for once
Walz and Vance were able to unite (more or less) on the need for more and better childcare solutions for working families. Although their plans aren’t identical, it was nice to hear the American childcare crisis—an issue that diaproportionally affects women—addressed on the national stage.
The civility of it all was almost creepy
It might be easy to forget, given the novelty of getting through a debate without one candidate calling another “mentally impaired,” but Vance’s artful spin on Trump’s agenda is still…the same agenda.