With the possible exception of the Mets playoff game, the sparring match that most captivated New Yorkers last night was the CBS Vice-Presidential debate as J.D. Vance and Tim Walz went toe-to-toe in Manhattan about how they intend to help either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris enact their vision of America over the next four years. Most commentators saw a nervous Walz stumble out of the gate, only to recover and land some punches, while a more polished Vance seemed to calmly hold his own without buckling under the weight of expectations. To analyze the debate, ABC News correspondent Steven Portnoy and NewsNation Now host Connell McShane both appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to break down their performances.
Portnoy told Berman and Riedel that the debate was a surprisingly civilized tug of war which, while it may not greatly affect the outcome of the 2024 race, did shape how voters see the philosophies of each Vice-Presidential hopeful, with a couple of zingers thrown in for effect. “Americans saw overall last night a substantive, remarkably polite debate which had the two candidates repeatedly saying how much they see eye to eye on key issues and even on the ways to solve those issues- but, of course, there were the clear differences on display with respect to immigration policy, abortion policy, changes to the Affordable Care Act, and, most acutely, at the very end, if you stayed up late enough, on Donald Trump’s views on the 2020 election.”
McShane concurred on the tone of the debate, but said there was one clear-cut winner. “Vance quote unquote ‘won’- the debate, I think both politically and literally. In other words, he won on points, and he was the political winner of the debate last night, and I say that to say I doubt it does much to help his running mate at the top of the ticket, but it probably helps Vance, whose reputation had taken some hits. Whether it helps Trump, again I just don’t think so because most of these VP debates do little to move needles when we look at polling.”
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