On Oct. 1, Oakland University hosted a watch party for the vice-presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz. Students had mixed reactions with some preferring one candidate over the other, but also seemed equally impressed with the turnout.
Since OU is located in Michigan, a battleground state, young voters are an important audience that each candidate hopes to win over before election day arrives.
Across the board, students thought the debate was more productive, positive and professional than the previous presidential debates between Harris and Trump, leaving many pleased with the experience.
“I think we’re used to leaders who can’t say a sentence correctly. I think that some guy who can properly think and speak is going to automatically do good,” Maya Kirksey, program director at WXOU, told The Oakland Post.
“I prefer this style of politics over the style of the presidential debates where they go off on tangents saying crazy things,” Senior Joseph Williams said.
Both Walz and Vance supporters echoed this sentiment — that this debate was more informational and respectful. Many students expressed how they wished politics were like this more often.
For some students, Vance gave good responses and increased their faith in the Republican ticket.
“He (Vance) was actually answering questions … at the end, he was talking about how he believes in affordability, and I remember eight years ago when things were actually affordable and in today’s climate it’s just not,” Freshman Logan Berthiaume said.
Vance’s professionalism surprised many in the audience who were expecting a more unhinged performance in the debate. Vance had even swayed some students who are swing voters.
“I was surprised how professional J.D. Vance was … I was rooting for Kamala Harris, but after watching this I am back in the middle of undecided,” Carl Tisler, Junior majoring in History, told The Oakland Post.
Tisler also expressed that, were he to vote at that moment, he would vote for Trump and Vance.
While some students were very enthusiastic about Vance, some had a more neutral feeling — though still leaning towards a certain candidate.
“It’s not like Tim Walz did bad or anything … If you said, ‘Say who won?’ I’d say probably Vance … maybe slightly,” Williams said.
Ola Grazhdani, a Senior majoring in Economics, mentioned that she believed that Walz won the debate partially due to Vance’s deflecting of questions. Other students were in agreeance about this.
“He’s trying to manipulate the situation,” Grazhdani said.
Many students had a very negative view of Vance and weren’t shy about their support for Tim Walz.
“He (Vance) just seemed so slimy to me, he just seemed like such a bad person. Especially about Trump’s peaceful transfer of power — which was a total lie,” Jack Waters, a member of the College Democrats, said.
Many students expressed that they felt the expectation for Vance was low. This likely contributes to the common comment that he did much better than expected — even amongst students who were ardent Walz supporters.
“I’ll be honest, I really hated his performance, not for it being necessarily super bad — I mean it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I thought he was basically just gonna crumble immediately,” Waters said.
To those who liked Walz, many commented on how he seemed to be a better person. Some of those who were Vance fans also commented that they didn’t have many outright negative things to say.
“I do trust the Midwestern dad a bit,” Grazhdani said.
The watch party was hosted by multiple student organizations including Oakland University Student Congress (OUSC), College Democrats (CDOU), College Republicans, For Michigan, Pi Sigma Alpha and Young Democratic Socialist of Oakland University (OU YDSA).
The Associated Press, MSNBC and Local 4 were also present interviewing students while covering the event.
