Walz won, but it wasn't nearly a slam dunk in the way that Harris/Trump was.
Let's address the elephant in the room: Vance performed better than expected. Walz didn't do badly at all, though the Democrats scored an own goal by painting Vance as a bumbling idiot and setting expectations so low. Let's be honest, the median voter has never even seen the man speak until now. Most people seemed caught off guard by how good Vance was at speaking. More energy should have been spent on portraying Vance as a disingenuous and capricious grifter, which is nakedly valid criticism. Vance is adroit in making Trump's stale and unpopular policies sound sophisticated, novel, even wonky. He's just enough well-spoken to inject a modicum of clarity and elaboration into his policies. Not particularly surprising, given that an Ivy League-educated lawyer would learn how to argue persuasively. Though, he still does struggle with trying to look uncontrived or empathetic, let alone with comedy. And unfortunately, while vice presidential debates- notable exception being Biden/Palin- are mostly inconsequential, Vance's performance could be just enough to rub enough undecided swing voters in the right way, whereas Trump's intensity and broad manner is futile in doing so for usually just confusing people. Vance's slickly-worded responses were well-executed and achieved what I can only assume the goal was: reshaping the radical MAGA ideology to be less charged and hateful, palatable to the median voter.
I sincerely feel bad for Walz; he's too "Minnesota nice" for this, an honest man more interested in action than talking smack, an encapsulation of the public servant. He's stated before even getting the VP pick that he's bad at debating, so it's not terribly surprising that he came off as a bit stiff, anxious, and not forceful enough. Perhaps the bar was mistakenly set too high for Walz, with many taking for granted that he'd brilliantly scorch Vance for his weirdness and associations with Project 2025, but he focused too much on finding ways in which he agrees with Vance and rarely went on the offense. There's just too much material and missed opportunities to clown on Vance to justify this. The whole "weird" arc really rings hollow when you seem to have tried your hardest to make Vance seem like a decent man who ultimately also wants to help America. At times it even seems like Walz been neutered on his more progressive ideology and talking points. Since the mics were on, the best way to deal with Vance was to just ask him yes or no questions, which was refreshing to watch toward the end, as Vance is allergic to pointed questions because he doesn't actually believe in anything. And it is actually quite disappointing how civil the debate was, despite it appearing refreshing after almost 10 years of Donald Trump writing the rules. Vance coming off as a reasonable guy, in some instances facilitated by Walz, inevitably conflates his abysmal and frankly fascistic policy agenda with being reasonable to a degree. Nevertheless, Walz did come out in the debate as a genuine, relatable guy who speaks his mind, is policy-focused and actually answers questions, which is why he won.
I'd even argue that a debate as such is Vance's best time to shine; as unlikeable and uncharismatic as he may be when it comes to giving canned speeches, interviews, and interacting with everyday Americans, he is a good, sharp rhetorician, which oftentimes matters more in a debate performance than being factually correct and having the superior policy agenda. Whereas Walz plays well to the Democratic base- especially young voters- in campaign rallies and on social media, he's just not as acclimated and experienced in front of larger crowds. This is also Walz's first media... anything since the interview he and Harris did about a month ago.
He can't even answer the question about why he didn't answer the previous question:
