With about a month left before Election Day on Nov. 5, Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz took the stage at the vice presidential debate on Oct. 1 for their first and only scheduled debate for the 2024 election.
Both were on stage to help endorse their presidential candidate, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.
Let’s talk about how it went:
The debate remained civil and well-mannered between the two. But one of the topics that got the two fiery was abortion rights. Walz brought up the stories of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, two Georgia women whose deaths are tied to their hometown abortion restrictions.
Vance then shared that his opinion on abortion has softened from a national abortion ban to the practice should be “left to the states” to decide. He mentioned how the Republican Party needs to gain the support of the American people on this issue.
Moving on to when Walz brought up the Jan. 6 Insurrection, Vance immediately dodged the question. Vance tried to change the topic and relate it to the need for social media censorship, but Walz went back at him.
Gun violence was also mentioned at the debate. Walz shared the story of how his son saw a shooting while playing volleyball at a community center.
“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 ….Christ have mercy, it is awful,” Vance responded by saying.
With the recent events of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, climate change was a hot topic. Vance’s opinion is that the best way for us to fight climate change is to move manufacturing to the United States since “the country has the world’s cleanest energy economy.”
Walz’s take on climate change emphasized renewable energy investments and the record levels of natural gas and oil production.
“I think it went quite well compared to the previous debates that we have had in the past, definitely compared to the presidential debate,” Ethan Vinodh, the president of the UMD Colleges’ Republicans said.
Vinodh said he thought Vance did the best job he could have answering questions during the debate.
“I think Tim Walz excelled later in the debate because I think he was a bit nervous in the beginning,” Justin Kane, a sophomore Democrat at UMD said.
Kane said that Walz did well covering women’s rights, Jan. 6th and preserving America’s democracy.
Despite the differences between Walz’s and Vance’s opinions on specific topics, the debate was one of the most polite debates of the 2024 election campaign.
Election day is Nov. 5..