Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance met face to face for the first time on the vice-presidential debate stage on Tuesday, Oct. 1. For many students at Loyola, one of the things that surprised them most about the debate was the civility between the two vice presidential candidates.
Braeden DiFranceisco ’26 aligns with the Republican Party but has yet to make up his mind on who he will vote for in November. He found the civility of the debate unfortunately surprising in our heated political climate. He also believes that Walz won the debate, but only slightly due to Vance not outwardly saying his ticket would accept the results of this election.
“I think there was a good part of the middle of the debate where both candidates were speaking to each other, and showing their admiration and respect for each other, which I think is important with our political divide that’s currently going on and the feeling that you’re either with a candidate or against them,” DiFranceisco said.
Jenna Mattern ‘26 believes that Walz won the debate. She describes herself as a Democrat and intends to vote for Kamala Harris in November. She also found the level of respect between the two vice presidential contenders surprising due to the impression the first two presidential debates left her, especially the June debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
“I obviously watched the debate between Biden and Trump… I thought that was a big mess and I didn’t think that the most recent presidential debate went the best either so I think that seeing this was almost refreshing. It was kind of nice to see two politicians speak together rather than at each other,” Mattern said.
Additionally, Mattern did credit Vance for the empathy he showed after Walz shared the story of his son being present for a shooting at a Saint Paul rec center in 2023, saying it was one of his best moments in the debate.
“I think that him apologizing for that situation and kind of showing empathy towards another person who has maybe very different views shows that he’s also a person and that politicians are human underneath all those policies and underneath all those negative media portrayals,” Mattern said.
DiFranceisco is the president of the American Politics Club, a nonpartisan club for people interested in politics. The club hosted a watch party for its members, and DiFranceisco said after the debate, a lot of the club members thought it was a tie, with many believing that Vance had performed better, but his lack of an answer regarding Jan. 6, 2021, spoiled his performance in the end. One of the things that stood out to DiFranceisco the most besides the civility between the vice presidential candidates was Walz’s nervous pattern of speech at the beginning of the debate.
“I think his first couple of lines, his opening response he was fumbling and stuttering, you know kind of doing what I’m doing. So, I think that initially my thoughts were that maybe he wasn’t going to have a strong performance, but I think as the rest of the debate went on he managed to catch his footing and develop more confident responses,” DiFranceisco said.
Baltimore County Councilmember and Loyola instructor David Marks thought Vance had won against Walz. Early polling aggregated by ABC indicates that a slim majority of debate watchers give the win to Vance.
“I think Vance was the winner, I think focus groups showed that. I think Walz did a commendable job in many ways, but Vance dominated the debate until the very end,” Marks said.
Marks also said that historically debates in a presidential election do not typically have an effect on the outcome and historically vice presidential debates are even less effective, however, he has reason to believe the race is tight enough that this debate could be consequential.
“Historically people vote for the top of the ticket, and there’s really only been a few times that debates overall have made a difference… I do think in a very tight election what Vance might have done is bring home Republicans and I suspect you’ll see these numbers continue to tighten,” Marks said.
