Minnesota Governor Tim Walz saw a significant bump in polling after Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate in New York, surpassing Ohio Senator JD Vance in postdebate momentum.

The showdown saw the two candidates largely focus on differences, with Vance repeatedly hitting Vice President Kamala Harris on border security, while Walz lambasted former President Donald Trump on abortion rights. Newsweek has contacted the Vance and Walz campaigns for comment via email.

According to the poll, the Minnesota governor saw a 23-point boost in his favorability ratings, going up from +14 to +37. Meanwhile, Vance saw a 19-point boost in his favorability ratings, going up from -22 to -3.


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  • @[email protected]
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    112 hours ago

    To paraphrase what Anthony Scaramucci said on the “The Rest is Politics” podcast: Most people probably come out of this debate thinking that Vance is the better debater, but if it’s about who you’d trust with a job in the White House, most people would say Walz.

  • AFK BRB Chocolate
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    113 hours ago

    Seems hard to believe that this debate moved the needle much on either side. They both performed well, there were no big gotcha moments, and each said the stuff that their base would want them to say. Neither seemed unhinged, both were well spoken.

    Vance said some stuff that was total crap, but that’s not a problem for anyone considering voting for Trump. I just don’t see that there’s any way anyone’s mind was changed.

  • @[email protected]
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    1679 hours ago

    According to the poll, the Minnesota governor saw a 23-point boost in his favorability ratings, going up from +14 to +37. Meanwhile, Vance saw a 19-point boost in his favorability ratings, going up from -22 to -3.

    19 point boost and it’s still negative is WILD

    • @kescusay
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      1139 hours ago

      He didn’t do himself any favors when he refused to admit the 2020 election wasn’t stolen and acted like the slippery weasel he is when questioned on abortion.

      • @dhork
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        709 hours ago

        But obviously he did, enough people saw that and said “Yeah, That’s my guy” that his net favorability rating is up 19 points. It’s still negative, but the fact it went up at all is troubling.

        • @[email protected]
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          489 hours ago

          I don’t like him at all, but he was articulate and not at all unhinged. He also hammered on the magic words that T somehow failed on: she’s been in office, where are her changes? (Yes, the VP job is a minimal role unless you’re Dick Cheney, but it works as effective perception management on most people.)

          Walz looked like he was sweating into his suit when the debate started, but then warmed up.

          The ending on Vance’s refusal to admit Trump lost in 2020, or to answer the question on whether or not he’d certify was really damning.

          • @commandar
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            5 hours ago

            I don’t like him at all, but he was articulate and not at all unhinged.

            I get what you mean here, but it’s also what makes Vance and whatever else comes after Trump so dangerous: the bar has been lowered so far that people now view “able to form coherent sentences” as “not at all unhinged.”

            The man stood there and repeated the bald faced lie about Haitian migrants’ legal status and then had a temper tantrum that the rules said he wasn’t supposed to be fact-checked.

            The substance of what he was saying was absolutely unhinged. But the Overton window has shifted so far that, because his delivery was neatly packaged, it doesn’t look that bad compared to what we’ve gotten used to.

            • @Bassman1805
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              408 hours ago

              Yeah, my father in law made some comment about “this debate is so much better than the last one” and I’m like…yeah, the word salad is replaced with Coherent English lies, but that’s not a great step up.

            • @[email protected]
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              188 hours ago

              Yes he did. But he sold it to people who don’t know better. This is probably why no fact checking was in the rules.

              (Which, how is that even allowed to be a thing?)

              He also, and this reads to your point, sells it to “non elites” (the non-degreed) with his dismissal of Wharton college economists. He acknowledges their PhDs, then says they lack common sense and wisdom, which has been a key byline for the Republican Party as a whole, echoing back years.

              PhDs are snobby fucks who lack common sense. Listen to me instead.

              The book smarts vs common sense, like they’re mutually exclusive is a very common, much repeated sentiment among working class Midwesterners. I was so mad that he got that right, not in the sense that it is correct, but that it will swing people his way.

              • @Feathercrown
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                108 hours ago

                People love to assume something like book smarts vs common sense or brains vs brawn is a scale where going higher on one means going lower on the other

        • @kescusay
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          69 hours ago

          Fair, but I’m not very worried about it. He’s still in the negatives, and as news comes out about exactly how dishonest he was throughout, I think his negatives will tick back up.

  • @TropicalDingdong
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    9 hours ago

    First off, almost no meaningful data on the polling impact of something that happened last night is available literally hours later.

    Second, both sets of numbers are ridiculously large enough to give whatever the source is added scrutiny.

    A 23 point bump is, like those don’t happen. If Biden instantly got a lasting peace in the Middle East he wouldn’t get an overnight 23 point bump.

    • @[email protected]
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      44 hours ago

      Absolutely this

      I’ve seen stuff on both sides saying their canadite did better in the polls, but we cannot know for certain so soon after the debate. anyone who does so is just going for a sensational story, rather then a factual story

    • @ilinamorato
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      118 hours ago

      574 registered voters were polled. So while it’s not necessarily meaningful for the election, it is significant and could help drive strategy.

    • @Carrolade
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      169 hours ago

      They’re fairly small polls conducted of people who specifically watched the debate. Definitely not representative of the overall electorate.

  • @[email protected]
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    419 hours ago

    going up from -22 to -3.

    Honestly Walz getting a bigger poll boost isn’t as much of a story when Vance got a slightly smaller boost and is still in the negative.

  • @Asidonhopo
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    -13 hours ago

    The Trump campaign saw a 1.5 point boost at Polymarket after the debate, now showing Trump 50% Harris 49%.

  • @graycube
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    118 hours ago

    Women should “just trust” the patriarchy to make good decisions for them. Vance said he needed to win back their trust way too many times.

  • @DandomRude
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    37 hours ago

    I haven’t seen the debate yet (cause time difference). I expect one guy spewing mostly hate and some made up stuff and one guy trying to make any sense of what his opponent says and try to fact check at least some of that. No substantial debate about anything actually important but an all American show as usual. I’m looking forward to that.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate
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      23 hours ago

      You know, it was very different than I expected. There were quite a number of times when one of them said “Well I agree with most of that he just said.” Vance is pretty smooth, too. Much of what he said was total crap, but it wasn’t the Trump-style hateful vomit. It was the most cordial debate I’ve seen in a while, though there were some strong disagreements.

      • @DandomRude
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        33 hours ago

        I just watched the debate. It’s true that Vance is better than Trump when it comes to rhetoric, but that’s not difficult. The sad thing is that many people seem to only care about how someone says something and not at all about what someone says.

        • AFK BRB Chocolate
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          12 hours ago

          I only partially agree. Yes, with the recent debates featuring Trump frothing at the mouth and saying completely insane and hateful stuff, if a debate doesn’t have that it’s worth connecting on. But people do care about content.

          With this debate as an example, lots of people commented on the “sanewashing” that Vance was doing - trying to give plausible explanations for things Trump has said or done - but it’s just not as outrageous as what we’re used to. And the Republican base was largely happy with that he said, even when it was demonstratively false.

          I think people care, but it’s twigs being added to a pile of logs.

  • The Pantser
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    48 hours ago

    Can’t wait for the new Kamala ad to drop and point out Jimmy’s lies

  • @ilinamorato
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    38 hours ago

    Honestly, this kind of makes sense. Walz’s aw-shucks mannerisms could get people to a “oh, he tried real hard” reaction a lot easier than Trump’s rage-fueled, impassioned, principled defense of his own rallies.

    • @[email protected]
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      54 hours ago

      That’s what I was thinking. Walz apologized to the moderators when they told him he went over the time. Like “oops sorry.”

      I never heard anyone apologize to the moderators for that before. I hope most normal people will see that and think he’s nice.

  • @psycho_driver
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    59 hours ago

    I think a lot of people hadn’t got a chance to see how weird Vance is before last night.

    • @givesomefucks
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      129 hours ago

      I’m convinced trump never thought past optics and didn’t look at anything besides headshots.

      It’s 100% the guyliner

      • @Bwaz
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        26 hours ago

        Am I the only person who noticed that JD didn’t have overdone eyeliner during last night’s debate? Like the campaign maybe sprung for a competent makeup artist this time?

      • @WhiskyTangoFoxtrot
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        58 hours ago

        When Trump picked Vance he was still running against Biden and was assumed to win easily. Campaign optics weren’t part of the equation.