JD Vance and Tim Walz kept things civil as they raced to appeal to moderate voters

• Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz’s debate turned more into a civil discussion than a grand clash.
• After months of personal attacks, Vance and Walz didn’t trade serious blows until the end.
• Tuesday’s debate will likely be the last major moment of the campaign.

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota trotted out their best version of Midwest Nice on Tuesday night, delivering a vice presidential debate of relative civility amid a campaign typified by acrimony and upended by violent assassination attempts.

The only things it seemed to be missing were an “ope” or a “you betcha.”

The bar was extraordinarily low.

Former President Trump spent part of the first debate falsely accusing Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, of “eating the pets of the people that live there” — a moment perhaps only topped by Trump’s infamous 2016 GOP primary debate thinly veiled boast about the size of his penis.

Vance and Walz routinely offered that they largely agreed with the points the other one made on everything from how trade deals had left Americans behind to wanting to pass more support for young families.

“Look, I’m a union guy on this,” Walz said. “I’m not a guy who wanted to ship things overseas, but I understand that.”

Both men also agreed that more needs to be done to drive down housing costs, one of the major economic policy areas in the race.

“First of all, you’re going to hear a lot from Tim Walz this evening, and you just heard it in the answer, a lot of what Kamala Harris proposes to do,” Vance said. “And some of it, I’ll be honest with you, it even sounds pretty good.”

Echoing Trump, Vance questioned why Harris hadn’t already worked on passing some of her economic policies.

The agreement didn’t happen in a vacuum

Polls have also shown that Vance is the least popular figure of the two major candidates and their running mates. It seemed clear that the Ohio Republican, who was tapped to be Trump’s MAGA heir apparent, wanted to use the moment to reintroduce himself to millions of Americans with an eye on undecided voters in the key swing states that will decide the race. It shouldn’t escape notice that Vance worked in Georgia and Arizona in his answers.

Vance is also not former Vice President Mike Pence. After all, Trump’s new running mate walks out to an Iraq War protest anthem. Vance is not a movement conservative, and thus, he’s far more apt to condemn the old Republican Party that once sang the praises of foreign intervention and free trade deals. In an extraordinary moment, Vance offered a defense for Trump’s signature tax cut deal by stating that it was aimed more at middle-class Americans than previous tax cuts, in other words, the plan championed by President George W. Bush. (It is true Trump’s plan disproportionately benefited higher-income Americans.)

Vance even tried to wash away his past support for a national abortion ban. He then tried to neutralize a ProPublica report that a woman in Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman, died because the publication found she couldn’t “access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state.”

“First of all, Governor, I agree with you, Amber Thurman should still be alive, and there are a lot of people who should still be alive, and I certainly wish that she was,” Vance said.

Walz and Harris have also sprinted to the center.

Harris, in particular, has jettisoned many of the progressive positions she took during her 2020 Democratic presidential primary run. In his closing statement, Walz praised a coalition that had brought former Vice President Dick Cheney and Taylor Swift together. Yes, the Dick Cheney, who embraces being compared to Darth Vader.

Midwestern Niceness is more than just an aw-shucks demeanor

There’s a reason the region is known for its fair share of passive aggressiveness. And there were certainly outright moments of aggression and disagreement. In particular, Walz and Vance traded barbs over Trump’s actions in the lead-up to and during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

“Well, I’ve enjoyed tonight’s debate, and there was a lot of commonality here,” Walz said, before tearing into Vance’s defense of Trump’s actions.

Walz added that he couldn’t believe that Vance would offer a direct answer to whether or not Trump had really lost the 2020 election.

“This one is troubling to me,” Walz said. “I say that because we need to tell the story. The fact is Donald Trump refused to acknowledge this.”

It also shouldn’t go unnoticed that Vance and Walz tore into each other in deeply personal ways ahead of the debate. Vance accused Walz of abandoning his National Guard unit by retiring before his service members were deployed to Iraq. Walz became the Democratic vice presidential nominee in large part because he called Vance and Trump “weird.”

Neither side truly seized what may be the last big moment

Journalists and pundits often joke about how much debates truly matter or if they matter at all.

Of course, no debate in American history mattered more than Trump and President Joe Biden’s June debate which eventually ended with Biden dropping out of the race. It remains to be seen how much ground Harris gained after facing off with Trump, but her national lead has risen slightly since her widely-agreed upon victory.

Tuesday’s debate comes at a critical time in the race. Election Day is in 34 days. Some states have already begun voting. Polling shows that Harris has built a narrow national lead since her decisive debate against Trump. But in the all-important swing states, the margin between the two remains extremely narrow.

Both campaigns need to sway a small number of undecided voters in swing states and then motivate non-voters to the polls. Hence, the move to the middle to try and appeal to the broadest number of people — and hopefully undecideds.

Trump and Harris are not expected to meet again on the debate stage. Harris has accepted a second debate, but Trump has thus far said it is too late for them to face off again. In their absence, the two major vice presidential hopefuls took up the unprecedented responsibility of delivering the closing arguments for their campaigns. It remains to be seen if it will move the needle at all.

Then again, the 2024 race has ripped up the script at nearly every turn. And given that Tuesday marks the start of October, the month of historic campaign surprises, there may be more upheaval to come.