The vice-presidential nominees may get the last word with voters on the debate stage following their mostly cordial and policy-oriented discussion, with no future dates scheduled between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz frequently got specific on policy ideas and solutions to navigate the country’s issues, in stark contrast to the presidential debate that offered little nuance and frequent attacks against each other.
But will anything said during the debate make a difference on Nov. 5? Past elections indicate that is unlikely.
Vice-presidential debates do not have a history of bringing any significant shifts in the electorate. Despite delivering some memorable moments in past campaigns, there are few indications that how the VP selections have performed has altered voting decisions.
This year’s debate could be a potential outlier because there is not a presidential debate scheduled for the coming days, or at all, like there is in most other cycles. But data from previous election years have shown that what the No. 2s say and how they perform has little impact on who Americans choose to vote for in November.
During the 2020 election, polls taken immediately after the debate showed that voters were just as likely to vote for either presidential candidate as they were going into it. That pattern is expected to continue this time around, as VP selections generally have little influence on voters’ choices.
The biggest prize for the campaigns is giving the running mates more face time with Americans. Harris and Trump are established figures on the national stage as the current vice president and a former president, but their running mates were relatively unknown prior to being elevated onto the presidential ticket.
Vance is serving his first term in the Senate representing Ohio and was best known for his bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” prior to joining the ticket. Walz has served multiple terms as Minnesota’s governor and represented the state in Congress before that, but had little name recognition on a national stage prior to being chosen as Harris’ running mate.
The debate also gave them a chance to improve their favorability ratings with voters. Polling released by Gallup in the hours before the debate showed less than half of registered voters have a positive view of Vance or Walz.
Forty-six percent of respondents rated Walz as an “excellent” or “pretty good” choice, compared to 41% for Vance. Walz has had an advantage over his Republican counterpart for most of the campaign since being added to the ticket.
Positivity ratings for Vance and Walz generally track with other recent VP nods like Harris in 2020, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine in 2016 and former Vice President Mike Pence in 2016. But their negative ratings are higher than past VP nominees, with nearly 40% of registered voters rating them as “poor choices.”
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