About last night
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) had a surprisingly friendly meeting last night on the debate stage, often reiterating how much they agree with each other — a very different tone from their rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Vance outperformed Walz with his skilled pivoting and calm demeanor. Walz, on the other hand, flubbed some easy answers and appeared nervous. He looked shaky during the first question, which was about the conflict in the Middle East, coming hours after Iran launched almost 200 missiles at Israel, and whether the two candidates would support an Israeli preemptive attack against Iran. Neither candidate proposed a solid answer.
Walz’s worst moment of the night came when moderator Margaret Brennan asked why he had misstated he had been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: VANCE AND WALZ TO GO TOE-TO-TOE IN CBS CONTEST
He responded with a nearly 450-word answer that ranged from his origin in Nebraska to his time with the National Guard, but he didn’t explain the lie, White House Reporter Haisten Willis wrote.
Moderators pressed again, asking, “Governor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy?” He again struggled to answer bluntly.
However, some substantial policy stances came out of the debate. Vance explained the deportation policy that former President Donald Trump failed to during his debate on Sept. 10. The Republican running mate also delivered a fresh answer on abortion, admitting that voters don’t trust Republicans on this issue and that he knows not everyone agrees with what he thinks.
Walz had his strongest moment at the end of the debate, during a question on big “D” Democracy. He pushed back firmly on Vance, asking him directly if Trump lost the election four years ago. When Vance said he would rather focus on the future, Walz said, in his best line of the night, “That is a damning nonanswer.”
Read more of the Washington Examiner’s takeaways from last night’s debate.
Dockworkers’ strike threatens Harris’s campaign
On Tuesday, thousands of longshoremen went on strike up and down the East Coast. They are demanding pay hikes and a ban on automation, which threatens their jobs. Politicians have been musing for weeks about how this could affect the economy and the election, being just over a month out from Election Day. The longer the strike lasts, the more damage it spells for Harris, Economics Reporter Zach Halaschak wrote.
President Joe Biden is in a tough position as the self-proclaimed “most pro-union president in history.” To avert the effects of the strike — which could raise prices on everyday goods, such as bananas, chocolate, cars, and toys — he would have to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act, which he doesn’t want to do. If he did, there would be a cooling-off period, and negotiations would start back up, during which longshoremen would return to work.
The strike could affect everyday people as transported goods stock up at ports without anyone working on the docks. Sean Higgins, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Zach that when West Coast ports were jammed during the pandemic, there was a “cascade effect” that created a supply chain crisis across the country. The longer it lasts, the more likely voters will feel the pain.
And Republicans aren’t letting people forget that Biden could be playing a heftier role in getting the parties back to the negotiating tables. Yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said, “This administration’s failure to encourage a resolution between the International Longshoremen’s Association union and the U.S. Maritime Alliance will only exacerbate the economic pain wrought by four years of skyrocketing inflation, decreasing wages, and fewer jobs.” Of course, any criticism of Biden’s administration is a criticism of Harris, as the senior-most member of his cabinet.
Read more about the effects of the dockworkers’ strike on Harris.
No love for Biden from vulnerable Democrats
Senate Democrats running in tight races are campaigning off policies signed into law by Biden but are steering clear of mentioning the unpopular president’s name, Senate Reporter Samantha-Jo Roth wrote.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), in perhaps the most vulnerable seat held by Democrats, touted his own work on the Inflation Reduction Act, one of Biden’s most successful policies. He also praised the bipartisan infrastructure bill, another one of Biden’s presidential claim-to-fames. But in his debate answers touting those policies, he didn’t attribute anything to the leader of his party.
“What we need to do is things like negotiations for prescription drugs or capping the cost of insulin, by the way, which we’ve done this year or last year with the Inflation Reduction Act, by the way, which I was the only one in the delegation to vote for,” Tester said during a debate on Monday night.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), locked in a tight race in Michigan against Republican Mike Rogers, praised her own work to ensure microchips are made in the United States. This was a priority for Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, which provided $280 billion in subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing and scientific research to help the U.S. compete with China.
Read more analysis of how vulnerable Democrats are distancing themselves from Biden.
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What’s on today
Biden will travel to Greenville, South Carolina, at 1:45 p.m. to survey the damage from Hurricane Helene. Then, he will visit Raleigh, North Carolina, for a briefing at 4:15 p.m.
Harris will go to Augusta, Georgia, for her own Helene-related visit and provide remarks on the federal response at 4 p.m.
Vance and Walz will be out campaigning, with Vance in Michigan and Walz in central Pennsylvania.