Weird No More: Tim Walz, J.D. Vance Humanize One Another

He was the first to call Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance “creepy,” to look past his best-selling autobiography, sneering that “J.D. went to Yale,” and to puckishly accuse the father of three of unnatural relations with a piece of furniture. As folksy as it was cutting, the approach caught the eye of Harris. After hasty summer auditions, she made the Midwesterner Democrat, the politician later dubbed “the dad in plaid,” her running mate.

But then Walz met Vance face-to-face in Midtown Manhattan for the vice-presidential debate, and like a good neighbor, he mostly avoided controversy. On no less than half a dozen occasions Tuesday night, the Democrat said he agreed, somewhat, with the Republican on everything from stopping the flow of illicit fentanyl across the southern border to curbing the financialization of the U.S. housing market.

His debate coach, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, had “summed up” the Trump-Vance ticket at the Democratic convention “in one word: Darkness.” Two months later, Walz may have humanized the bogeyman.

After Vance argued that unfettered free trade had put the country at a disadvantage, for instance, Walz replied that “much of what the senator said right there, I’m in agreement with him on this.” He continued, “I watched it happen too. I watched it in my communities.” Only after the initial consensus did the Minnesota Democrat counter that Republicans like Vance were no friend of the working man.

The Democrat did not bait the Republican like Harris had when she shared a stage with Trump. He did not call him an existential threat to democracy either. Walz instead debated Vance much like a candidate for school board, not the vice presidency. Complained anti-Trump Republican David Frum afterward, “Vance is going home tonight with Walz’s wallet. Vance didn't even have to snatch it, Walz just handed it over, along with a bunch of unearned compliments to Vance’s fine character.”

The civility did not occur in a vacuum, however: The Republican candidate may have actually started it. Walz came out firing, albeit at Trump, not the man at the adjacent podium, but Vance kept smiling and at one point began calling his opponent “Tim” as though they were old friends. It seemed to trigger the “Minnesota nice” gene in Walz’s DNA. Vance disagreed with Walz without being disagreeable, avoiding any name-calling but betraying his feelings perhaps only with a tilt of the head and an occasional smirk. And if anti-Trump political professionals were disappointed, ordinary Americans were not: A CBS News flash poll of debate watchers found that 88% reported that the tone of the contest was “positive” and the results undeniably split: 42% said Vance won while 41% picked Walz.

Undercard debates seldom determine presidential elections. In 1988, Democratic Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas famously threw Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle off his game by declaring that his 41-year-old opponent was “no Jack Kennedy.” But it was cold comfort when the Republican ticket of George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle won the election by a comfortable margin. Perhaps former Sen. Claire McCaskill was thinking of that history after Tuesday night’s debate when the Missouri Democrat said, “Most Americans fundamentally understand that the VP is not the president.”

This is true, but so is the fact that Vance and Walz are competing for a job that puts them one heartbeat away from that office. And while the men treated each other respectfully, they did not always extend the same courtesy to each other’s bosses. The senator began by making a clear distinction: He made a point of saying that Harris is an incumbent and Trump is not.

“When did Iran and Hamas and their proxies attack Israel? It was during the administration of Kamala Harris,” Vance said. “So Gov. Walz can criticize Donald Trump’s tweets, but effective, smart diplomacy and peace through strength is how you bring stability back to a very broken world.”

It was a pregnant phrase, “the administration of Kamala Harris,” consistent with the GOP’s strategy. While President Joe Biden barely got a passing mention, Vance attempted to do what Trump could not, or would not, do in his own debate with Harris: Tie her to the policies of an unpopular presidency. While Democrats want the election to become a referendum on the previous president, Vance focused on the policies of the current administration, reminding viewers that Harris has been on the job “for three and a half years; Day one was 1,400 days ago.”

Near the end of the 100-minute session, Walz did manage to force Vance to confront an older history. “I would just ask,” the governor said of Trump, “did he lose the 2020 election?” The senator replied, “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” then asked, “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”

“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said of the dodge.

“It's a damning non-answer for you to not talk about censorship,” Vance shot back after comparing the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol to violations of the First Amendment.

Both men hit the books in preparation for the debate. One longtime Vance confidant told RealClearPolitics that the senator quipped privately that he had been advised “to come across like Mitt Romney,” not in terms of substance but in conciliatory temperament. Although a spokesman for the senator disputed that account, Vance clearly was intent on countering the Democrats’ harsh portrayal of him – and did so by turning on the charm. What is also undeniable is that Vance had more practice fielding unfriendly questions than his opponent. The Republican candidate spent far more time in the barrel than his counterpart. Vance has sat for multiple interviews and regularly takes questions from reporters, while Walz meets the press infrequently. It showed.

Vance didn’t blink when asked again about his past criticism of his running mate, including once privately wondering whether Trump was “America’s Hitler” and comparing him to “cultural heroin.” He replied that he “was wrong about Donald Trump,” explaining that he previously had “believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record.”

When asked about false claims that he made about traveling to China during the Tiananmen Square protests, Walz gave a circuitous answer before finally admitting the error, calling himself an occasional “knucklehead” with a habit of exaggeration: “Many times I will talk a lot. I will get caught up in the rhetoric.”

Vance was confronted with his own past rhetoric, specifically his stated preference for abortion to be illegal across the country. But when asked about the biggest vulnerability Republicans have with suburban women, he threaded the needle, first admitting that his party “has got to do a much better job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they, frankly, just don’t trust us.”

Vance said that he never supported a national abortion ban, only specific restrictions. Returning to the social media website formerly known as Twitter, Trump announced at that point in the evening that if such a ban came to his desk, “I would veto it.”

Back on the debate stage, Vance then turned the conversation to the Minnesota abortion law that Walz signed last year. He told the governor that he had read the law and “the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion.” The Republican called this “barbaric.” The Democrat countered that this was a misreading.

“These are women’s decisions to make about their healthcare decisions and the physicians who know best when they need to do this,” Walz said before accusing Vance of “trying to distort the way a law is written, to try and make a point. That’s not it at all.”

The Minnesota law in question does not include any viability limit, meaning an abortion is permitted at any time throughout the pregnancy up until birth. As Minnesota Public Radio reported, the law that Walz signed also did away with the so-called “Born Alive Infants Protection Act.” As the law is now written, it does not prevent abortionists from providing lifesaving care to a baby that survives an abortion. It does not require them to administer it, either.

The Harris campaign had tried to lessen expectations for the evening. The former football coach is good in front of a crowd, but Walz still reportedly was nervous about the contest. “He’s a strong person,” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar told CNN ahead of the contest. “He’s just not a lawyer-debater type. It’s not like he was dreaming of debates when he was in first grade.” But the Trump campaign thought they detected a head fake. “Tim Walz is very good at debates. I want to repeat that Tim Walz is very good in debates – really good,” said senior advisor Jason Miller. “He’s been a politician for nearly 20 years.”

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly was agnostic on the question before the debate started. “I think you have to ask him,” he told RealClearPolitics when asked if the smoke signals were a stunt. The Democrat, who also auditioned to be Harris’ No. 2, said only that Walz “is somebody that I think all Americans can relate to, a coach, a teacher, and a very effective governor.”

When it was over, the invective quickly changed among Democrats: “Weird” gave way to “slick.”

Asked if the old boilerplate still applied, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told RCP,  “Vance came across as shifty. If you were hiring somebody to sell cars, you’d hire J.D. Vance in a second.” As for Walz, Polis said in the spin room, he was “an authentic leader” who had just demonstrated “that he has what it takes to help Kamala Harris succeed as president.”

Walz gained steam, and confidence, as the night wore on, but when it was over, Democrats doubled down on the expectations-lowering gambit even after the fact. Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett said that Walz’s apparent jitters were not just understandable but relatable. “The average person’s number one fear is public speaking,” she told reporters, comparing the senator, “someone who is trained in this space” with the governor, who is more plain-spoken. “This was a nerve-wracking thing,” she continued before pointing to the last contest that changed history.

“We know that there was a complete shift of our ticket after a debate,” Crockett said of the Atlanta debate that led to Biden’s departure from the race. “That is a lot of pressure.”

Vance knows the feeling. Democrats found so much fodder in his previous commentary on podcasts that even some Republicans started to grumble that he was more of a liability than an asset to the ticket. His comment about “childless cat ladies,” for instance, was a gift that kept on giving for Harris and Walz as they sought to define him as callous and uncaring. But Tuesday night, Vance shifted into a gear Democrats didn’t think he had: Empathy.

When Walz said that his son Gus had been present at a shooting, Vance expressed both surprise and sadness. “I've got a 17-year-old, and he witnessed a shooting at a community center playing volleyball,” the Democrat said.

“That's awful,” the Republican responded, shaking his head. “Tim, first of all, I didn't know that your 17-year-old witnessed a shooting, and I’m sorry about that and I hope he's doing OK,” Vance said. “Christ have mercy, it is awful.”

Replied Walz, “I appreciate you saying that.”

The two men could not be more different in their opinions on guns – or any number of other issues – but on stage together, neither lived up to the billing of the opposing campaigns. Vance did not come across as “weird.” Walz was not “dangerously liberal.” Together they offered a miniature episode in civility that contrasts sharply with the rest of the contentious campaign.

“They tried to paint him in a way that was just inappropriate,” Howard Lutnick, co-chair of the Trump transition team, told RCP of the old “weird” attacks. But then the senator had his moment in the sun, the Wall Street CEO said. “Everybody in America saw J.D. Vance is a smart, thoughtful, and capable human being, who cares about America, cares about our workforce, and proved it tonight by just staying respectful and staying above it all but still answering the questions.”

Another surprise: Vance did not reprise his arguments about Walz’s military service. The Republican, a Marine Corps veteran, had pointed to alleged misrepresentations that the Democrat, a veteran of the Army National Guard, had made about his time in uniform, accusing Walz of “stolen valor.” According to Donald Trump Jr. this was a pragmatic consideration.

“It was such an obvious overpowering that you didn’t need it,” the son of the previous president and close friend of Vance told RCP. “Just follow leftist Twitter; they are losing their minds because there wasn’t a single point that Walz won.”

At the end of the night when the microphones were cut, the two debaters shook hands – as they had promised to do during the debate itself – and introduced their spouses. In the spin room though, as campaigns compete for advantage, political considerations remain regardless of the Midwest civility displayed on stage. For his part, Trump Jr. couldn’t resist a final barb. “Walz was nodding along to everything J.D. was saying like he was voting for us,” he told RCP. “I think Walz may actually be voting for Trump!”