Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance faced off in a mild-mannered vice presidential debate in New York City on Tuesday night. Abortion and immigration took center stage in the first and only vice presidential debate of the 2024 election. 

The debate comes just 35 days before the Nov. 5 general election when the nation will decide who will lead the country — Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris or Republican former President Donald Trump. The presidential candidates are deadlocked in key battleground swing states that will decide the next election. 

The debate marks the most prominent stage for the candidates to introduce themselves to American voters. Leading up to their vice presidential nominations, neither candidate was well-known.

 The debate was more civil than their running mates’ matchup, and the vice presidential candidates also focused more on policy specifics than Harris and Trump, whose September debate consisted more of personal attacks and vague arguments. At one point CBS moderators did mute the pair’s microphones, following Vance over elaborating on the legal process of immigration visas despite their insistence to move on. 

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Some of the top issues on the minds of voters heading into the November general election are immigration and abortion, where both sides are divided on the solution. 

Abortion is at the top of the minds of voters nationwide and in Iowa as they prepare to cast a ballot on election night. Recent polls have found the majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal and accessible, and candidates’ stances on the issue will impact how they vote. 

A March Pew Research Center survey found that 63 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in most cases. 

Walz, who looked uncomfortable when the first question from the moderators was about foreign affairs, found his footing when discussing abortion — Harris’s strongest issue. He spoke forcefully about the need to protect the right to abortion, especially following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

Walz pointed at Trump for the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn the landmark case and provided several examples of women who have died or suffered severe health problems and complications due to abortion bans or restrictions. 

Walz also touted Minnesota’s legislation that expanded abortion protections. 

“In Minnesota, what we did was restore Roe versus Wade,” Walz said. “We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care… This is a basic human right.” 

Vance said in 2022 he would like abortion to be illegal nationally, however, on debate night he echoed Trump’s stance that abortion should be decided by states. 

 “The proper way to handle this — as messy as democracy sometimes is — is to let voters make these decisions, let the individual states make their abortion policy,” Vance said. “I think that’s what makes the most sense in a very big, a very diverse and, let’s be honest, sometimes a very, very messy and divided country.” 

Reproductive health care and abortion access are a flashpoint in Iowa politics, following the state’s recent six-week abortion ban. A recent Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll found that 64 percent of Iowans think that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. A September Pew Research Center survey found that 51 percent of poll respondents said abortion was very important to their decision in November. 

The pair also clashed over their differences on immigration on Tuesday, an issue that 61 percent of all voters say is very important to their vote in the presidential election, a recent Pew Research Center poll found.  

Vance and his running mate Trump have railed Harris and President Joe Biden for the record number of border crossings under their administration, though border crossings have dropped dramatically recently. 

Vance accused Harris, who was deputized as the “border czar” of the Biden administration and tasked with solving the root cause of migration from Central America, of undoing 94 Trump-era executive orders that he says caused a record level of migration across the U.S.-Mexico border. 

“We have a historic immigration crisis, because Kamala Harris started and said that she wanted to undo all of Donald Trump’s border policies, 94 executive orders, suspending deportations, decriminalizing illegal aliens, massively increasing with the asylum fraud that exists in our system that has opened the floodgates,” Vance said. 

The Biden-Harris administration has signed dozens of executive orders regarding immigration. The administration, however, has not decriminalized illegal immigration. She has previously supported decriminalizing illegal immigration but has since reversed course. 

Vance largely blamed Harris for the large number of migrants that crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022 and 2023 and would not commit to the mass deportations that his running mate has promised. 

“For three years, Kamala Harris went out bragging that she was going to undo Donald Trump’s border policy,” Vance said. “She did exactly that. We had a record number of illegal crossings.” 

Walz argued that Vance and his running mate Trump had broken up a bipartisan U.S. Senate bill that would have gone to effect change to the country’s immigration system and provided additional resources to Border Patrol agents. 

“Most of us want to solve this, and that is the United States Congress,” Walz said. “That’s why we had the fairest and the toughest bill on immigration that this nation has seen… But as soon as I was getting ready to pass and actually tackle this, Donald Trump said no. Told them to vote against it, because it gives him a campaign issue.” 

Trump did tell Senate Republicans that he opposed the deal but a number of key senate republicans opposed the bill while it was being drafted, according to Factcheck.org.  

Trump did urge Senate Republicans not to pass the bill, calling it a “gift” to Democrats and saying,  “a bad border deal is far worse than no border deal” in a social media post. 

However, Trump did not say not to pass it because it would give him something to run on. 

Johnson County Democrats resonated with Walz’s comments on abortion 

Johnson County Democrats gathered at Field Day Brewery in North Liberty over beer, burgers, and fries as they donned flannel and jeans to mimic Walz’s midwestern appearance and competed in a Walz look-alike contest. 

The nearly two dozen jeered and shouted at Vance throughout the debate while cheering for Walz’s responses. 

Oliver Langland, of North Liberty, said that Walz’s response to questions about abortion was the highlight of the night. 

“Especially Walz’s comment on women, where [Democrats] are pro-women, that especially undecided women, that’ll hopefully bolster them certainly,” Langland said. 

RELATED: Harris, Trump clash on abortion, immigration in testy debate Tuesday

State Rep. Adam Zabner, D-Iowa City said Walz’s support of reinstating Roe V. Wade, the legal precedent that previously protected the federal right to an abortion but was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022, would resonate with a lot of Iowans. 

“I thought JD Vance, his answer was essentially that he would have continued to let Iowans face a six-week draconian abortion ban where women are not allowed to make their own reproductive health care decisions,” Zabner said. “ I think that Tim Walz was clear that women should have the right to make their own reproductive health care choices, and that’s been here certainly.” 

A recent Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll found that 64 percent of Iowans think that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. 

“And I think Iowans, when I knock doors, are talking about this issue, and they’re going to vote on this issue,” Zabner said. 

Young Republicans said Vance provides relatability to Trump’s campaign

Iowa Young Americans for Freedom hosted a sparse watch party with less than a dozen attendees in the Iowa Memorial Union Tuesday night. 

Gathering around a TV near the entrance of the IMU sharing snacks and playing a game of watch party bingo, members of the conservative group watched the first and only vice presidential debate of the 2024 election. 

Brody Baker, a University of Iowa freshman and member of Young Americans for Freedom, said Vance’s professionalism during the debate set him apart from the former president. 

“I would say for the last debate, it was more of a wash, or more towards Harris, I agree with that. It was not more of a Trump victory, in my opinion,” Baker said. “But now you hear Vance being calm and answering the questions and not going over time or yelling and yelling.” 

Baker said the debate allowed the candidates to present their issues, with Walz giving the perspective of what America is right now and what it could be, and Vance pushing information about the Trump administration. 

Ryan Matras, the conservative student group’s secretary, said going into the debate, he didn’t know much about the vice presidential candidates, and the debate allows people to at the very least put a face to a name. 

“I feel like I understand them more, either of them, both Walz and Vance,” he said. “I feel like they’ve definitely been able to show off their name successfully so far.”

Matras said he appreciated Vance mentioning his personal life and referencing aspects of himself outside of politics, such as his childhood and family. 

Vance made a point of introducing himself to viewers during his first chance to speak in the debate. Walz mentioned his family, history as a public school teacher, and political history later in the event. 

After the debate when Vance and Walz shook hands, Hale Halvorson, a UI freshman, pointed at the TV and said, “This is the kind of politics I want to see.” 

Halvorson said the country is politically divided, with a giant gap between parties. 

“If we just are very respectful, and we can respectfully disagree on things, that’s going to be better for our country as a whole, instead of just demonizing the other side,” he said. “I think if we can keep our composure and realize that we all disagree, that we all can respectfully disagree, that’ll be a better thing for our country.” 

Halvorson said Vance brings a more grounded, grassroots, blue collar experience to counter Trump, who comes from money. He said Vance provides more of an American dream-type story that the American people can gravitate toward and understand, making it easier to connect with the vice presidential candidate. 

From Minnesota, Halvorson plans to vote for Trump and Vance in the upcoming election instead of casting a ballot in favor of the governor from his home state. 

Halvorson said Walz misrepresents himself, pointing to Walz’s previous statements about carrying weapons in war and his children being conceived through IVF. Walz’s wife Gwen has said they used Intrauterine Insemination instead of IVF in a statement early in the campaign. Walz has also said he misspoke when he said in a 2018 video that he carried weapons in war. 

However, Trump did say more than 3,000 false or misleading statements during his presidency according to the Washington Post. 

“He lies quite a bit more than most politicians, even when it has to do with nothing that he’s talking about. He didn’t have to connect with the IVF stance that he took, but he did anyway, because he’s quite a liar,” Halvorson said.  “It makes me less likely to vote for someone who is a constant liar than it is someone who will tell the truth.” 

When asked to explain the discrepancy of his past statements, specifically about his repeated claims that he had been in Hong Kong during the June, 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing although reports had surfaced that he was in his home state Nebraska, Walz called himself a “knucklehead.” 

Pressed further by moderators, Walz admitted that he misspoke and can get caught up in political rhetoric.