The first and only Vice Presidential Debate was held on Tuesday, October 1st. Before we get started, here is some background info you might want to know to understand what happened a little better.

  The Vice Presidential Debate lasted 90 minutes with 2 commercial breaks lasting four minutes each. During these breaks, candidates were not allowed to interact with anyone from their campaign. The candidate who was asked a question had two minutes to answer, then the other candidate was given two minutes to respond. There was an additional minute for rebuttals where the moderators could give the candidate another minute to continue the topic if needed. The candidates were not allowed to bring any pre-written notes on stage but were allowed a blank notepad provided by CBS. One of the bigger differences between the vice presidential and presidential debate was that during the vice presidential debate, the microphone remained on while the other candidate was answering a question. But CBS did reserve the right to mute the microphones if deemed necessary.

  Now that we know the rules, what happened during the debate? To break down what happened in the entire debate would take too long, but there were many important parts of the debate that deserved to be reviewed. 

  To begin, Ohio Senator JD Vance (Republican Nominee) and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (Democratic Nominee) entered the stage and began the debate by initiating a civil handshake between each other. Which did not happen in the presidential debate where Former President Trump and Vice President Harris shared a tense handshake.

  A part of the debate that viewers on Tik Tok  have taken notice of is how Walz and Vance were actually agreeing on a lot of the topics that they were debating on. When asked a question on the southern border, Walz responded saying how his party thinks they need to increase funding for the southern border. Vance replied with, “And I actually think, I agree with you. I think you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think that Kamala Harris does.” When asked about energy production, Vance said we need to produce more energy instead of relying on trade. Walz replied with, “Folks that, folks that are venture capital, in some cases, putting money into companies that were overseas, we’re in agreement that we bring those home.” 

  On the topic of abortion, Vance explains how he wants to support fertility treatments and affordable childcare. Walz responded, “I agree with a lot of what Senator Vance said about what’s happening. His running mate, though, does not. And that’s the problem.” On social media platforms (ex: Instagram, Tik Tok) some of the public has expressed that they feel the two candidates agreed on more than they disagreed on.

  Many different topics were brought up during the debate. The topics brought up and the amount of time each candidate spent on the topics were: 

Character and Fitness: Walz: 7:43 vs Vance: 5:33, 

Immigration: Walz: 2:55 vs Vance: 4:34,

Abortion: Walz: 4:09 vs Vance: 3:13,

Economy: Walz: 2:45 vs Vance: 4:36,

Healthcare: Walz: 3:33 vs Vance: 3:25, 

Democracy: Walz: 3:10 vs Vance: 3:25,

Guns: Walz: 2:56 vs Vance 2:31,

Housing: Walz: 3:43 vs Vance: 1:30,

Childcare: Walz: 2:39 vs Vance: 2:30,

Climate Change: Walz: 1:27 vs Vance: 1:10,

Tax Reform: Walz: 0:50 vs Vance: 0:48, 

Middle East: Walz: 1:00 vs Vance: 0:31,

Foreign Policy: Walz: 0:07 vs Vance: 1:05,

Hurricane Helene: Walz 0:28 vs Vance: 0:28,

Now you’re probably wondering what did the presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have to say about the debate. Trump told Fox News, “JD was fantastic last night — it just reconfirmed my choice…There was a brilliance to what he did.” Trump also made a comment on how he felt Tim Walz did in the debate. He stated, “On the other hand, Tim Walz proved to be a man that doesn’t have it in any way, shape or form for the office that he is seeking, though I would put him a large number of steps above Kamala.” After an extensive amount of research there isn’t a statement directly from Vice President Harris on how she feels Walz did in the debate, but there are multiple statements made from the campaign on the “kamalahq” Tik Tok page. For example, a Tik Tok was posted with the heading “Tim Walz slams Trump: A nearly 80 year old Donald Trump talking about his crowd sizes and not what we need at this moment.”

So who won the debate? Polls from YouGov.com after the debate shows that 46% of people think the Republican Nominee JD Vance won the debate while 32% of people think Democratic Nominee Tim Walz won the debate. There were slightly more republicans watching the debate (61%), while 53% of democrats were watching.