Debate Polls Show Americans Split on Winner, With JD Vance Barely Edging Out Tim Walz

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance narrowly beat his Democratic opponent Tim Walz in the CBS debate on Tuesday, according to viewer polls conducted by CBS and CNN.

According to a poll conducted by CBS and YouGov, 42% of viewers said Vance won the debate versus 41% who said Walz was the winner. 17% of viewers said the debate was a tie.

An overwhelming majority of viewers (88%) said the “tone” of the debate was “generally positive,” while 12% said it was “generally negative.”

CNN’s poll resulted in a very similar result, with 51% of viewers hailing Vance as the winner versus 49% for Walz.

Walz’s performance fell short of viewer expectations, as 54% had predicted a Walz victory before the debate versus just 45% for Vance.

However, the results were the most narrow for a CNN vice presidential debate poll since at least 2008.

Analyzing the results, CNN political director David Chalian noted that those polled skewed “overall, about 5 percentage points more Democratic than a poll of registered voters nationwide would be.”

He continued, “Vance bested expectations. Walz underperformed expectations of this group of debate watchers going into the debate,” before adding, “You see here it looks more in the realm of 2016 and 2012. This was not an outsized, lopsided victory the way we saw in 2020 or 2008. Roughly even here in how the debate watchers in this poll saw this debate tonight.”

Walz made several disastrous remarks during the debate, including a gaffe in which he accidentally boasted about being “friends with school shooters” – a gaffe which was quickly blasted out on social media by the Trump campaign.

Watch above via CNN.