Who won the VP debate? J.D. Vance declared the winner over Tim Walz in Daily Mail poll

Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance could leave New York a winner after his one and only debate with vice-presidential rival Tim Walz, DailyMail.com’s exclusive snap poll shows.

The CBS showdown just 35 days before the general election was a chance for the vice presidential picks to prove they are qualified to be within a stone’s throw of the presidency.

The candidates became embroiled in issues such as abortion, immigration, gun violence and the Middle East. The two also took plenty of chances to portray each other as extreme or “weird.”

They also upsized their bosses, Trump and Kamala Harris, in the final campaign sprint of what could be one of the closest elections in decades.

But it was Vance who left the best impression on viewers, after a strong start against a nervous opponent and despite dodging the question of whether Trump would lose the 2020 election.

According to the DailyMail.com/JL Partners poll of 801 likely voters, 50 percent said Vance won the debate, compared to just 43 percent who said Walz was the winner.

Seven percent of respondents weren’t sure who came out on top.

James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners and DailyMail.com pollster, said it was clear JD Vance had the best performance of the night.

But whether it will have an impact on the general election is another matter.

“JD Vance can take a bow after his debate performance, with voters likely saying he did the best,” Johnson said.

“This was not a self-destructive moment for Walz, whose approval rating improved in the minds of viewers after the debate and is seen by Harris as the right choice.

‘What is perhaps most striking about the data is how little this seems to matter.

“Despite giving Vance victory, voters did not change their preference for vice president or how they would vote in November.”

Of survey respondents, 46 percent said before the debate that they planned to vote for Trump and Vance. This was the same at the end of the evening.

Half (50 percent) said they planned to support Harris and Walz. That figure fell by one percent as a result of the debate.

“Vance had a good night, but it could have more impact on his own personal political brand than whether Trump ends up in the White House on January 20.”

Another viewer who praised Vance was the former president, who commented on every development on stage in New York throughout the night.

“JD crushed it! Walz was a low-IQ disaster – a lot like Kamala,” Trump said in one of his many Truth Social posts that evening.

He added: “Our country could never recover from a government of these two. Can you imagine them representing us with sharp, fierce foreign leaders? I can’t!

The Republican candidate insulted Walz by calling him “Tampon Tim” and mocking his frantic note-taking.

He also attacked CBS moderators Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell, calling them “young ladies” and claiming they were “biased” toward his vice presidential pick.

Walz started off nervously when asked whether he would launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran in response to the ballistic missile attack on Israel.

The Minnesota governor was visibly nervous during the initial conversations, while Vance gave more balanced and polished answers.

Walz then had two major blunders.

The first was when he stumbled over a question about his claims that he taught in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in China.

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Local media reports at the time placed him in his home state of Nebraska and had him planning a trip to China months after the demonstrations.

“I got there that summer and made a mistake,” Walz said. ‘That’s what I said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests, went in and I learned a lot from that.”

During a conversation about gun violence, he recalled how his 17-year-old son Gus witnessed a school shooting.

In an unfortunate slip of the tongue, he then said, “I’ve become friends with school shooters.”

It is unclear what he wanted to say.

In a moment of brutal honesty – with the folksy attitude that has dominated his campaign – he admitted: “I’m an idiot sometimes.

‘I’ll talk a lot. I will get caught up in the rhetoric.”

Moderators pointed out that J.D. Vance previously said he would not have certified the last election and pressed him on whether he would challenge the 2024 election results.

Vance initially sidestepped the question by focusing on the issues he wants to talk about. But he returned to the topic and downplayed Trump’s role on January 6.

He said Trump believed there were problems with the last election but defended the ex-president’s response. He then argued that the real threat to democracy is censorship.

Walz called Vance’s response to the question a “damn non-answer” and later called it disturbing.

“Democracy is bigger than winning elections,” Walz said. “You shake hands and try to do everything you can to help the other side win.”

The governor added that when this election is over “we have to shake hands” and “the winner has to be the winner.”

Vance repeatedly referred to the “Kamala Harris administration” in an attempt to tie the vice president to President Joe Biden’s policies.

‘When did Iran and Hamas and their allies attack Israel? It was during the Kamala Harris administration,” Vance said early in the debate.

“So Gov. Walz can criticize Donald Trump’s tweets, but effective, smart diplomacy and peace through strength is the way you bring stability back to a very broken world.”

Vance also claimed that Harris, not Biden, signed the executive order that reversed most of Trump’s immigration policies.

JD Vance is being fact-checked

Trump’s running mate was ultimately fact-checked by moderators during the debate, even though CBS News indicated it would not be a fact-check of the candidates.

Brennan checked Vance’s facts and noted that the Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, are in the country legally.

That prompted an angry response from Vance and ended with the candidates’ microphones cutting out.

During a back-and-forth about immigration, Vance talked about how Haitians were an overwhelming resource in the Ohio community.

“Thank you Governor, and just to be clear, for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio has a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status,” Brennan added.

‘Thank you, Margreet. The rules were that you guys weren’t allowed to fact-check, and since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s really going on,” Vance said.

As Vance and Walz continued to talk about the topic, their microphones went dead.

A very civil debate with handshakes and hugs between their wives

Vance and Walz engaged in a largely civil and substantive debate on policies ranging from immigration to health care, the economy and taxes, abortion rights and more.

Both candidates immediately shook hands before the debate even started. It was different from when Harris had to walk up to Trump at the top of their presidential debate last month.

During the debate, both candidates even acknowledged their agreement at times.

In a CNN focus group afterward, one undecided voter called it an unexpectedly “warm and fuzzy” debate.