Republican Sen. JD Vance and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz squared off Tuesday night for the only vice presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle. The two candidates focused more on the issues than each other, creating more policy discussions but fewer viral moments than the presidential debates have spawned.

Respectful tone but sharp clashes over issues

While the presidential debates have been contentious and sometimes have led to outrageous statements and moments, the vice presidential debate was notable for how cordial it was. Though Vance and Walz expressed vastly different views and attacked the other ticket’s stances on everything from health care to energy policy to foreign affairs, they did so calmly and respectfully. At multiple points, each candidate expressed some level of agreement with the other, presenting themselves as two candidates with good-faith disagreements on how to achieve similar broad goals.

The respectful tone did not, however, prevent them from going at one another on issues like abortion policy. Vance repeated an accusation that Walz’s abortion policies in Minnesota allowed for babies born from failed abortions to die, while Walz highlighted the story of Amber Thurman, who died after developing complications from a medical abortion and was initially denied care in Georgia under its restrictive abortion laws.

Another striking moment came regarding immigration. Despite the announcement that moderators would not fact-check the candidates’ claims, the moderators did step in as Vance repeated false claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. As Vance double downed, trying to paint the process by which the Haitians were allowed to stay in the United States as unlawful and talking over the moderators to do so, the candidates’ mics were turned off, with co-moderator Margaret Brennan informing them that the audience could no longer hear the candidates and saying “thank you for describing the legal process” in response to Vance’s words.

Key moments but no clear winner

Although the debate was mostly low-key, each side’s supporters found ways to criticize the other party’s candidate. Walz’s “worst” moment in the eyes of many of his detractors came when he stumbled a bit while trying to answer a question about him misstating his presence in Hong Kong during the April-June 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China, giving a long answer about his travels and his upbringing that muddled his response that “I got there that summer and misspoke.”

Vance, meanwhile, refused to directly answer a question about whether he accepted that Former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. The Ohio senator instead tried to paint Vice President Kamala Harris as a bigger threat to democracy than Trump, accusing the vice president of “censorship at an industrial scale,” seemingly referring to efforts to remove misinformation on social media. Walz took him to task for the comparison and the evasive response, saying that “January 6 was not Facebook ads” and called Vance’s response “a damning nonanswer.” Walz addressed voters on the issue of democracy, saying, “You’ve got a really clear choice on this election of who’s going to honor that democracy and who’s going to honor Donald Trump.”

Several snap polls taken immediately after the debate show no clear-cut winner. CBS News’ poll showed 42% of respondents saying Vance won, 41% giving the nod to Walz and 17% calling it a tie. CNN’s poll, meanwhile, gave a close 51% to 49% advantage to Vance. Both polls had both candidates’ favorability ratings going up after the debate. And a separate poll conducted by Politico and Focaldata deemed the debate a 50%-50% tie. That poll showed that 57% of Independents thought Walz won the debate, while only 42% of Independents thought Vance won.

These split results symbolize a presidential race that remains close. With many states already conducting early voting and just over one month until Election Day, both tickets will spend the next several weeks trying to jump ahead and claim victory in November.

AbortionJD VanceTim Walzvice presidential debate