Polling shows the vice presidential debate was a draw — that’s good news for JD Vance

Most political pundits declared that Republican Senator JD Vance got the better of Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz during the sole vice presidential debate on Tuesday evening. Walz made a few slip-ups, such as when he accidentally said he befriended school shooters and had to own up to the fact he had not been in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China.

Many were also surprised by the fact that Vance presented a more restrained and less awkward version of himself than has been seen on the campaign trail so far.

Put together, these facts have made commentators likely to say that Vance was the winner.

The truth is a bit more complicated than that. Snap polls from CBS and CNN both showed that Vance only slightly edged out Walz or the two were tied, contrary to what those pundits said.

In some ways, Vance’s performance should not have been surprising. When I reviewed hours of Vance’s debate footage during his 2022 campaign for Senate in Ohio, he did much of the same stuff he did this week. He talked about his Mamaw and his mother’s drug addiction; and when he got frustrated with the moderators, he confronted them directly. He made almost identical remarks when discussing how he went from hating Trump to running to be his number-two.

Walz’s performance didn’t surprise me either, since he largely relied on his record, tried to keep it local and talk about his record in Minnesota — though he missed the chance to defend Minnesota’s abortion law when given the chance from moderators — and didn’t go in too hot against Vance, despite him famously giving Trump’s running mate the “weird” reputation.

The governor seemed to go out of his way to be deferential to Vance, which some liberals may not have