Vance and Walz focus their attacks on the top of the ticket

Walz and Vance Face Off in Final 2024 VP Debate

By BILL BARROW, ZEKE MILLER and NICHOLAS RICCARDI

WASHINGTON — Vice Presidential hopefuls Tim Walz and JD Vance squared off Tuesday night in what may be the last debate of the 2024 presidential campaign. It was the first encounter between Minnesota’s Democratic governor and Ohio’s Republican senator, following last month’s debate between the tops of their tickets, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

No more debates are on the political calendar before Election Day. Tuesday’s confrontation came as the global stakes of the contest rose again as Iran fired missiles at Israel. The vice presidential hopefuls sparred over the violence in the Middle East, climate change and immigration. Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s debate.

With Mideast in turmoil, Walz promises ‘steady leadership” and Vance offers ’peace through strength’

Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on Tuesday elicited a contrast between the Democratic and Republican tickets on foreign policy: Walz promised “steady leadership” under Harris while Vance pledged a return to “peace through strength” if Trump is returned to the White House.

The differing visions of what American leadership should look like overshadowed the sharp policy differences between the two tickets.

Vance and Walz punch up rather than at each other

Vance and Walz trained the bulk of their attacks not on their on-stage rival, but on the running mates who weren’t in the room.

Both vice presidential nominees sought to convey a genial mien as they lobbed criticism at Harris and Trump, respectively.

It was a reflection of the fact that most voters don’t cast a ballot based on the vice president, and on a vice presidential nominee’s historic role in serving as the attack dog for their running mates.

Both candidates put a domestic spin on climate change

In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Helene, Vance took a question about climate change and gave an answer about jobs and manufacturing, taking a detour around Trump’s past claims that global warming is a “hoax.”

Vance contended that the best way to fight climate change was to move more manufacturing to the United States, because the country has the world’s cleanest energy economy. It was a distinctly domestic spin on a global crisis, especially after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the international Paris climate accords during his administration.

Walz, Vance each blame opposing presidential candidate for immigration stalemate

The two running mates agreed that the number of migrants in the U.S. illegally is a problem. But each laid the blame on the opposing presidential nominee.

Vance echoed Trump by repeatedly calling Harris the “border czar” and suggested that she, as vice president, single-handedly rolled back the immigration restrictions Trump had imposed as president. The result, in Vance’s telling, is an unchecked flow of fentanyl, strain on state and local resources and increased housing prices around the country.

Walz advanced Democrats’ arguments that Trump single-handedly killed a bipartisan Senate deal to tighten border security and boost the processing system for immigrants and asylum seekers.

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Originally Published: October 1, 2024 at 8:26 p.m.