A focus group of Republicans, Democrats and independents reacted to key moments from the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate between Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz.
A Fox News Digital focus group of Republicans, Democrats and independents reacted to key moments from the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate between Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday night, offering real-time responses to the candidates’ statements.
In a focus group hosted by Lee Carter, participants across the political spectrum used dials showing their favorable, unfavorable or neutral responses to Vance and Walz. Their reactions gave insights into how the voters who will help decide the election felt about the demeanor, character and policies of the two men, one of whom will be the next vice president.
Here are some of the most significant voter reactions from Tuesday night’s focus group.
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Vance’s argument that the U.S. needed to “stop the bleeding” at the border during Tuesday’s debate elicited a mixed response from voters.
Vance received mixed responses when he said, “Before we talk about deportations, we have to stop the bleeding… we have a historic immigration crisis because Kamala Harris started and said that she wanted to undo all of Donald Trump’s border policies.”
While Republican views of Vance’s answers had an immediate positive response, Democratic viewers of the debate went in an opposite direction, the dials showed. Independents, meanwhile, hovered around a neutral response to Vance’s answer.
Voters began to see Vance’s response in a more positive light when he touched on former President Trump’s border policies, arguing that the next administration should return to handling the border similar to how Trump did during his four years in office.
Democrats and independents reacted moderately-to-highly favorable to Walz’s rejoinder on the migrant crisis and his criticism of the Trump administration.
Walz touted the bipartisan immigration bill that Trump pushed to kill earlier this year and defended Kamala Harris’ record in California on the issue. Republicans were unfavorable to Walz but independents and Democrats gave him high marks throughout his answer.
“Pass the bill, she’ll sign it,” Walz said.
Republican, Democrat and independent voters reacted differently when Vance stated that he and Trump support “clean air, clean water” when climate change was brought up at the debate.
“Look, a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns. I think it’s important for us, first of all, to say, Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water. We want the environment to be cleaner and safer,” Vance said.
The Fox News Debate Dial showed support among independents and Democrats dipping downward when Vance made that statement. Support among Republicans remained fairly consistent.
But support among independent viewers began to rise again when Vance referenced how Democrats bring up carbon emissions when discussing climate change.
“This idea that carbon emissions drives all of the climate change. Well, let’s just say that’s true just for the sake of argument. So we’re not arguing about weird science. Let’s just say that’s true,” Vance said. “Well, if you believe that, what would you — would you want to do? The answer is that you’d want to restore as much American manufacturing as possible, and you’d want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.”
One of Walz’s most difficult moments at the debate received poor to middling reviews across the board from the focus group.
Moderators confronted Walz on his prior claim that he was present at the Tiananmen Square protests in Hong Kong in 1989, when he didn’t travel to Asia until later that year. Walz gave a meandering answer that showed sub-par responses from Democrats, Republicans and independents almost throughout his entire comment, which didn’t directly address the discrepancy.
At one point, he admitted he could be a “knucklehead.” He eventually admitted he’d misspoke.
Walz’s support among Republicans dipped to its lowest point – under 10% – when he said former President Donald Trump would have benefited from participating in one of his China trips, arguing Trump would never have befriended Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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Despite CBS announcing that it would not allow live fact-checking during the debate, moderator Margaret Brennan interjected to correct Vance after he suggested that illegal immigrants are overwhelming public resources in Springfield, Ohio.
Independent and Republican voters disapproved of the interjection, but independent voters dipped significantly when Vance began explaining his stance.
Independents were mixed, while Republicans were highly favorable of Vance saying he was “wrong” about Trump in the past when confronted about his past criticism of his running mate.
“Sometimes, of course, I’ve disagreed with the president, but I’ve also been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump. I was wrong, first of all, because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record,” Vance said.
When Walz was asked whether he supports abortion up until the ninth month as Minnesota is one of the least restrictive states for abortion, he responded, “That’s not what the bill says.”
While Republican voters dipped significantly as Walz spoke, independent and Democratic voters stayed mostly in the approval zone.
“What we did is restore Roe v. Wade, we made sure that we put women in charge of their health care,” Walz said.
Independents dipped slightly in approval while Democratic voters shot up during his statement. The two eventually evened out and stayed in the approval zone.
“This is a basic human right,” he later said.
The independent voters stayed slightly under the Democratic approval line, as Republicans significantly disapproved.
Vance received a positive reaction across the board from Democrats, Republicans and Independents when he told Walz he was sorry his son was once a witness to a shooting.
“I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witnessed a shooting, and I’m sorry about that,” the senator told Walz.
“I appreciate it,” Walz said.
“Christ have mercy,” Vance remarked.
Independents gave Vance an immediate low rating when he said he was focused on the future after Walz asked him if Trump lost the 2020 election.
Republicans on the Fox News Debate Dial had been unimpressed with Walz’s line of questioning and the dial went down, with the approval staying generally the same with Vance’s answers, but the dials for independents and Democrats took a sharp dive as Vance brushed off the question. It dove the sharpest among independents.
Liberal media pundits repeatedly played and discussed the clip in the debate’s aftermath, saying it was one of Walz’s strongest moments in a night that Vance otherwise controlled.
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Fox News Digital’s Jamie Joseph, Adam Shaw, Danielle Wallace, Michael Lee, Anders Hagstrom and Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.
