Vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance have gone head-to-head in what may be the last major event of the presidential election.
The Democratic Governor of Minnesota and the Republican Senator from Ohio duked it out on a series of important policy positions, but the tenor was much more restrained than the presidential debates earlier this year.
Vance and Walz repeatedly mentioned their own families and at several moments pointed out things they agreed on.
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But with so few undecided voters, it is unlikely this event will have a meaningful impact on the election.
As the debate began, Walz was visibly nervous, while Vance was more composed.
Walz soon gained in confidence.
But Vance was given the awkward position of defending some of the positions of Donald Trump.
On climate change
When asked whether he agreed with Trump’s belief that climate change was a hoax, Vance dodged the question outright.
Instead he criticised the dominance of China in the solar panel manufacturing industry.
“The real issue is that if you’re spending hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars of American taxpayer money on solar panels that are made in China, number one, you’re going to make the economy dirtier,” Vance said.
“We should be making more of the solar panels here.”
Walz invoked remarks made by Trump to oil company executives at a fundraiser.
“To take the oil company executives to Mar-a-Lago and say – give me money for my campaign and I’ll let you do whatever you want,” he said.
“We can be smarter than that.”
On immigration
Vance has said that Harris has “enabled Mexican drug cartels to operate freely in this country”.
“We know they use children as drug mules and it is a disgrace and it has to stop,” he said.
“We had a record number of illegal crossings. We had a record number of fentanyl coming into our country.”
Walz said the “drug mule” allegations were not true.
He criticised Trump and Vance’s comments about Haitian migrants in the town of Springfield, Ohio.
At the presidential debate Trump said Haitian migrants were eating dogs and cats in the town.
“That vilified a large number of people who were here legally in the community of Springfield. The Republican Governor said – it’s not true,” Walz said.
“When it becomes a talking point like this, we villainise and dehumanise human beings.”
“I don’t talk about my faith a lot. But Matthew 25:40 talks about to the least amongst us, you do unto me.”
When Vance was called out by the moderators on a false statement on Haitian migrants, he replied: “The rules were that you weren’t going to fact check.”
On the economy
Walz was asked how Harris would pay for her $US1.2 trillion economic plan without blowing out the deficit.
The governor did not specifically address questions about the cost, but spoke of Trump’s own record in office.
“Donald Trump made a promise and I’ll give you this – he took folks from Mar-a-Lago and said you’re rich as hell and I’ll give you a tax cut.
“He gave the tax cuts to the top brass.
“What happened there was an $US8 trillion increase in the national debt. The largest ever.”
Vance was also asked about Trump’s economic plan estimated to increase the deficit by $US5.8 trillion.
“(Harris) has been the vice president for three-and-a-half years and has had the opportunity to enact all these great policies and what she has done instead is drive the cost of food higher by 25 per cent, housing by 60 per cent, open the American southern border and make middle-class life unaffordable,” Vance said.
“If she has such great plans to address the problems, she ought to do them not when asking for promotion but in the job the American people gave her.”
Walz then took a jab at Trump’s personal taxes.
“I ask you, teachers, nurses, truck drivers, how is it fair that you are paying your taxes every year and Donald Trump has not paid any in the last 15 years?” he said.
“That is what is wrong with the system.”
Walz pressured on Tiananmen Square claims
Walz was asked about a statement he made several times in the past about being in Hong Kong when the Tiananmen Square massacre took place.
Media outlets have found Walz had not travelled to Asia until two months after the massacre took place.
Walz said that he misspoke.
“I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy process and from that I learnt a lot of what needed to be in governance.”
Vance quizzed about past statements on Trump
Vance was asked about messages he had written in 2020 stating that Trump had failed to deliver on his economic populism.
“I have been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump,” Vance said.
“First of all because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record.”
On abortion
When asked about abortion rights, Walz invoked specific instances of women needing an abortion.
He spoke of a woman in Texas who developed sepsis and nearly died because she couldn’t get an abortion after a complication.
He also referenced a 12-year-old girl in Kentucky who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather.
“When asked about that, Senator Vance said, two wrongs don’t make a right,” Walz said.
Vance defended the right of states to make abortion laws as they see fit.
“California has a different viewpoint on this than Georgia. Georgia has a different viewpoint from Arizona, and the proper way to handle this, as messy as democracy sometimes is, is to let voters make these decisions,” Vance said.
Vance was then quizzed about national abortion restrictions he had supported as a senator.
“I never supported a national ban. I did when I was running for Senate in 2022 talk about setting some minimum national standard,” he said.
“Donald Trump and I are committed to pursuing pro-family policies.
“Making childcare more accessible. Making fertility treatments more accessible, because we’ve got to do a better job at that, and that’s what real leadership is.”
Walz pointed out that while Harris has proposed specific policies to make childcare and fertility treatment more affordable, Trump has not.
As abortion was discussed during the debate, Trump issued a statement on the issue, confirming he would veto a national abortion ban.
The statement was made via a tweet written in all caps and in bold.
He had dodged committing to a veto in the presidential debate last month.
He followed up with a tweet on baseball legend Pete Rose, who died yesterday.
On school shootings
Vance said his approach to reducing school violence was an answer he didn’t love.
“I don’t want my kids to go to school in a school that feels unsafe or where there are visible signs of security,” he said.
“But I feel that we have to increase security in our schools. We have to make the doors lock better. We have to make the doors stronger. We have to make the windows stronger and of course, we’ve got to increase school resource officers.”
Walz said that growing up he would keep a shotgun in his car so he could go pheasant hunting after football practice.
“In Minnesota we have enacted enhanced red flag laws and background checks,” he said.
“Do you want your schools to look like a fort? When we know there are countries around the world, that their children are not practising these types of drills.”
He mentioned Finland, which has high gun ownership levels but low rates of violent crime.
On health care
Vance made a dubious claim about Trump’s record on health care.
“You don’t have to agree with everything that President Trump has ever said or ever done, but when Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act or ACA) was crushing under the weight of its own regulatory burden and healthcare costs, Donald Trump could have destroyed the program,” he said.
“Instead, he worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.
Walz, who was in Congress at the time, pushed back on his claims.
“On day one, (Trump) tried to sign an executive order to repeal the ACA,” Walz said.
“He signed on to a lawsuit to repeal the ACA, but lost it to the Supreme Court, and he would have repealed the ACA had it not been for the courage of John McCain to save that bill.”
On the election results
Vance has defended Trump’s behaviour on January 6 before the insurrection on the Capitol.
“I believe we actually have a threat to democracy in this country, but unfortunately it is not the threat Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want to talk about,” he said.
“It is the threat of censorship.
“It is Americans casting aside lifelong friendships because of disagreements over politics, it’s big technology companies silencing their fellow citizens and it is Kamala Harris saying that rather than debate and persuade her fellow Americans, she’d like to send the people who engage in misinformation.”
Walz took issue at Vance’s description of January 6.
READ MORE: Fear, confusion at being transformed into target for nation’s vitriol
“140 police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day,” Walz said.
“Several later died.”
Walz then challenged Vance directly.
“Did (Trump) lose the 2020 election?” he said.
Vance replied: “I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”
“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said.
Who won the debate?
It’s probably fair to say Vance won the debate on points, but neither candidate came close to landing the knockout blow.
But Vance did a much better job putting forward the Republican party platform.
What’s difficult for Vance is that his political beliefs, especially on abortion, are out of step with the general electorate.
Minnesotans are famous in America for being nice, and as governor of that state, Walz may have been hampered by his own home state instincts.
In his closing statement, Walz thanked the audience for watching the debate instead of Dancing With The Stars.
But neither candidate went for the jugular.
For viewers watching at home, it’s likely the candidate they liked the best was the one they were always going to vote for anyway.
Election Day is November 5.
READ MORE: US election poll-tracker: Who will win on November 5?
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