Pollster Nate Silver suggested Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) was “sanewashing” his Republican rival, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), in Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate.
“The term ‘sanewashing’ is going around among liberal media critics, the idea that the media is too willing to normalize [former President] Trump and Vance’s behavior,” Silver said in a Substack post Wednesday. “Wasn’t Walz sanewashing Vance? He said nothing about the Republican ticket’s conspiratorial claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets, for instance.”
The debate between Walz and Vance was mostly civil and policy-focused, standing in contrast with the debate between the two presidential candidates a month prior. Notably, Walz and Vance often said they agreed on certain issues throughout the debate.
However, there was a moment of slight tension between Vance and Walz over whether Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. When pressed by the Minnesota governor on the topic, Vance responded that he is “focused on the future.”
“Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?” Vance continued.
Walz called the response “a damning nonanswer.”
“But if the VP debate represented a brief return to normalcy — it was a cordial and substantive evening, and Walz clearly seemed to think that playing the happy warrior role suited his brand — it was also a reminder that this election would probably still be close in more normal times,” Silver said Wednesday.
“Between immigration, foreign policy failures, the high inflation of 2021-23, a thermostatic voter backlash to leftward shifts on cultural issues, [Vice President] Harris’s flip-flops after her sharp left turn in 2019, and Biden’s fitness for office, a more disciplined and normal Republican campaign would have a lot of ammunition to work with,” Silver continued.
The Hill has reached out to the Harris campaign and Trump campaign.