This May Be the Most Important VP Debate Ever

On Wednesday night, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic nominee for Vice President, Senator Kamala Harris, engaged in the first and only Vice Presidential debate held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The debate was very civil especially compared to the hot mess that was the first presidential debate. In an already very tediously drawn-out election cycle amid a global pandemic that has already taken the toll of 210,000 American lives, this year’s vice presidential debate might just be the most important one that has ever been held.

Let’s first take a quick look at the current national political landscape before discussing the debate itself. Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated politics for the past six months, and it was front and center during the debate. To that end, a number of precautionary measures were taken, including erecting plexiglass barriers between the candidates, which we’ll discuss below.

In spite of the first presidential debate being a mess (arguably for both candidates), Biden has seen nothing but gains in both national and statewide polls. In fact, today, Biden has reached his all-time record on the FiveThirtyEight nationwide polling average: he is leading by an astounding 9.8 percent over Donald Trump, at the time of writing.

The numbers are just as bad for Trump on the RealClearPolitics (RCP) polling average, which doesn’t weight polls according to poll and pollster quality like FiveThirtyEight does. Biden is up 9.7 on the RCP average.

All of this data says one thing: the Democrats and Joe Biden do not need these presidential debates to help flip the race around. They are already seeing all-time highs, and already, four million people have voted. Donald Trump and the GOP, however, desperately needs these debates to help turn the race around. And that doesn’t seem like it’s happening.

It is also why this is one of the most important V.P. debates to ever take place. With Trump being off the campaign trail due to him contracting coronavirus, the attention has now shifted to the vice-presidential candidates.

So what went down on the one and only V.P. debate of this year’s campaign season? For starters, it was definitely way more civil than the presidential debate two weeks ago. There was at least no name-calling and shouting between the two candidates. However, that is by no means saying that the debate went well.

The topics discussed include COVID-19, the economy, the Supreme Court, race relations, foreign policy, election integrity, climate change, taxes, and of course, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Based on NBC News’ tally, both candidates spent a total of 14 minutes (out of over 90 minutes) talking about Donald Trump, by far more than any other topic. In general, Harris took the time to criticize and attack the Trump administration’s policies, such as on COVID-19 and the economy, while Pence spent most of this time defending them.

Pence spent some of his time discussing past statements from Harris and Biden, on issues like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, taxes, fracking and fossil fuels, China, and more. His offense was his time to shine, and he did a much better job than Donald Trump when it came to attacking their opposing candidate’s policies. Still, though his offense was on par, his defense wasn’t great, as it is naturally very difficult to defend the administration’s response to the pandemic. Pence was not able to give any solid reasons as to why the administration did what it did when it came to handling the pandemic. He also did not provide an answer on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, nor did he give any substantial reasons for pushing a nomination through. He spent most of the time answering this question on other topics.

Harris managed to defend most of Pence’s attacks quite well, such as continually repeating Biden’s campaign promise of not raising taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 and not banning fracking. She also did a good job of attacking the president’s tax records and the handling of the COVID-19 administration. However, she refused to answer a question about whether or not Democrats would pack the court if Judge Barrett’s nomination went through.

Like the presidential debate, the moderator, Susan Page from USA Today, was simply unable to get candidates to answer the question on topic. The questions were very well thought-out and worded, but alas, many went unanswered. For instance, when asked about health care, he started talking about court-packing. On the Supreme Court, Pence talked about the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. When asked about Trump’s health, he went into a tangent on how the Obama administration handled swine flu. Neither candidate made substantial answers on the transfer of power, election integrity, and presidential health.

There were also times when both candidates chose to just go off of a rehearsed speech. In addition, she also found difficulty in stopping Pence from going over his allotted time.

The plexiglass barriers that divided the two candidates was very controversial. Though they were completely useless (the candidates were already 12 feet apart), they served as a stark reminder of a pandemic that has already killed 210,000 Americans, which might explain why Pence was so against them prior to the debate.

Lastly, for over two minutes, there was a fly on Pence’s head, which many viewers found hilarious. It was widely talked about on Twitter and the Biden campaign is even selling fly swatters now.

Viewers generally maintained that Kamala Harris won the debate over Mike Pence. A FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll conducted after the debate showed Harris an over 10-point difference in the number of people who believed Harris did a better job than Trump. A CNN/SSRS poll showed 59 percent of people believed Harris to have won the debate, compared to Pence’s 30. (For reference, the same polls showed Pence at 48 percent and Kaine at 42 percent in the 2016 V.P. debate.)

Almost 58 million people watched the debate.

However, a number of key topics were still not addressed at this debate and the first presidential debate. For example, the topic of immigration, which has been in the news a lot lately due to Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, was not mentioned even once. The issue of gun control was not discussed either. And LGBTQ rights, education policy (e.g., free college, student loans), drug legalization or decriminalization, affordable housing, and lots more did not even get a passing mention.

As of writing, the second presidential debate, scheduled for October 15, is to take place online, according to the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, due to Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. However, Trump has refused to join, according to the latest sources. We will be following it closely.

Next week, there will be a post discussing the FiveThirtyEight U.S. House forecast, and lots more news on the 2020 elections. Stay tuned for more by following the blog with your email.

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