Fox News’ Karl Rove Declares JD Vance’s Performance Won’t Move the Needle for the Trump Campaign: ‘Not Gonna Affect the Polls’

Fox News’ Karl Rove argued that Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Senator JD Vance’s “very good” performance in his debate with Democratic nominee and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz still wouldn’t help lift Donald Trump’s poll numbers on Wednesday.

Rove’s pronouncement came after anchor John Roberts asked him if Vance’s good night would “move the needle at all?”

“Well, it was a very good night for him [Vance], and it was a very bad night for Tim Walz, who offered up a couple of heavy offerings of word salad. But no, look, at the first debate where Donald Trump was widely seen by in the polls and observers to have lost, it didn’t affect the polls. The vice presidential debate is not going to affect the polls either,” replied Rove. “It may affect the standing of JD Vance, who had very high negatives and very low positives, worse than Tim Walz. But no, presidential debates and vice presidential debates do not tend to affect things, particularly vice presidential debates.”

The revered Republican operative went on to note that while Lloyd Bentsen is famous for his put down of Dan Quayle in the 1988 presidential race, it was Quayle who became vice president.

“So no, it’s not going to have a big effect. Take a look at this. I was thinking about this and I actually got this in my column tomorrow. Think about this: On nine — on the first of September, the race was 44.7 for Trump, 47.8 [for Kamala Harris ] in the 538 average. As of today, it’s 45.9 to 48.5. I mean, this race is stuck,” concluded Rove. “And not to say that it’s going to, it may not come unglued at some point, but so far the back and forth, the television ads, the campaigning, the debates have done very little to change the numbers. Donald Trump has gone up 1.2 points. She has gone up, you know, let’s see here, seven-tenths of 1%. This race is tight.”

Watch above via Fox News.