Focus Groups Confirm JD Vance Defeated Tim Walz in Debate

A chorus of viewers from across the political spectrum agreed that Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-OH, handily won the sole scheduled debate with his Democratic opponent, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Vance overwhelmingly came out on top among multiple focus groups of swing-state independent voters, as well as a group of 13 New York Times opinion writers.

Pollster Frank Luntz conducted a focus group of 14 voters across the nation’s seven hotly-contested battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Luntz noted on X (formerly Twitter) that before the debate, only five of the voters said they were leaning toward the Trump-Vance ticket.

Despite this, the group picked Vance as the victor of the Tuesday night showdown by a landslide margin. Twelve of the 14 voters said Vance won, while only two named Walz the winner.

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The final count of 12 was up from the 10 voters in the group who said Vance was winning the debate during the first of its two commercial breaks.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post (WaPo) asked a group of 22 “uncommitted” swing state voters whom they believed “performed better” during the debate.

A decisive 14 (64%) of the 22 voters said Vance performed better, while 8 (36%) said the same for Walz.

WaPo added that the sample of swing state voters “thought Vance performed better” in the debate “regardless of how they plan to vote in November.”

Heather, a 39-year-old substitute teacher from Pennsylvania, said that the former president’s running mate “presented plans on most issues.”

“I think [Vance] was addressing the future and Walz played more to the past,” she said.

Heather said she will probably vote for Trump in November.

Melisa, a 42-year-old mother from Arizona who also believed Vance performed better, told WaPo that while she was merely leaning toward Trump before the debate, she is now definitely voting for the Republican nominee.

“[Vance] was very informed, direct, respectful, personal and outcome driven,” Melisa said. “I was quite impressed with his performance.”

Melisa’s impression of Trump’s running mate changed during the debate. Before Vance and Walz took the stage, she told WaPo that she believed Vance “comes across as aggressive and hostile.”

Following the debate, the Arizona mother changed her voting intention from leaning toward Trump to definitely planning to vote for the Republican ticket.

Notably, Vance spent a significant amount of time during the debate detailing his policy solutions for childcare and making raising a family more affordable.

“I want us as a Republican Party to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word,” Vance emphasized during the debate.

Kimberly, a 35-year-old hospitality worker from Michigan, also stated that Vance performed better in the clash with Walz. Despite this, she said that she is definitely voting for Harris in November.

“Vance is very well spoken and sounds like he is more sound minded than Trump,” she noted.

Stunningly, a decisive 13-to-9 majority of the same group of voters held that Vance gave a better answer to a question about climate change than Walz.

Political consultant Ryan Girdusky, a Catholic, wrote on X that this result was particularly “devastating” for the Democratic candidate.

“JD destroyed Walz on an issue Democrats always win,” Girdusky pointed out.

On Wednesday morning, The New York Times reported that it “asked 13 of our columnists and contributors to watch the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night and assess who won and who lost.”

Of the writers, nine (69%) said Vance turned in the better performance, two said Walz won, and the remaining two said the debate was a draw.

Columnist Ross Douthat – the writer who most decisively said that Vance won the debate – wrote that the Republican gave a “commanding performance.”

Douthat, who like Vance is a prominent convert to the Catholic faith, said that Walz’s performance “was a nervous ramble.”

Modern Age Editor Daniel McCarthy told the Times: “Vance won with a stronger start, then Walz lost with a closing statement boasting of a Harris coalition ‘from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift.’”

“Socialism, endless war and manufactured teen feelings are the last things voters want or need in November,” McCarthy stated.

Times business writer Binyamin Applebaum stated that Vance “was more effective in presenting a version of his party’s ticket that might broaden its appeal.” Vance “made Trumpism sound polite, calm and coherent,” Applebaum said.

Even left-wing columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote: “It’s a pretty straightforward verdict: Vance won this debate.”

In a column for the Times presumably penned while the debate was still taking place, Douthat wrote: “The first half of the vice-presidential debate has been the strongest illustration in this campaign so far of why it made sense for Donald Trump to pick JD Vance as his running mate.”

Douthat stated that Vance was “delivering one of the best debating performances by a Republican nominee for president or vice president in recent memory and making a case for Trump’s record far more effectively than Trump has ever been capable of doing.”

LifeNews Note: Joshua Mercer writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.

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