What Went Down During The Vice Presidential Debate

Vice presidential debates rarely matter, and this one will probably be no different. I’m sure partisans were pleased with their respective candidate’s performance, but there weren’t that many surprises. Maybe we can pick out the fact that each candidate followed the example of the presidential nominees in a notable way.

Like Biden in the first presidential debate, Harris wouldn’t take a stance on expanding the size of the Supreme Court in response to Amy Coney Barrett’s expected confirmation ahead of the election. And like Trump, Pence wouldn’t simply say whether he would accept the election result and support the peaceful transfer of power should his side lose in November. But despite those potential headlines, I’m sure Trump will say or tweet something tomorrow — if not tonight — that will get as much play as anything from this debate.

ABC commentators mentioning that pinkeye can be an early sign of COVID-19, but, of course, nobody can diagnose illness over the TV.

After last week’s disaster, that was kind of a nice time warp back to 2004 or so. Pence and Harris both got a little testy, but no more than a usual debate. Pence really stayed focused on a few topics, including insisting that Biden would raise taxes and ban fracking. Harris started really strong by landing a lot of punches on the coronavirus, but she also didn’t have great answers on court packing or foreign policy. Ultimately, those topics either don’t matter much to the American people, or the public has already made their minds up on them. So I didn’t see anything tonight that would change the trajectory of the race.