What the Walz and Vance exchange on Jan. 6 says about the partisan divide and the coming election

During Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance’s answer to a question about whether he would attempt to challenge the 2024 election results, even if every state governor certified them, led to one of the night’s more memorable exchanges.

“First of all, I think that we're focused on the future,” Vance answered, adding, “Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020. And my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully in the public square.”

Vance then claimed that on Jan. 6, Trump had told his supporters “to protest peacefully” at the Capitol Building where Congress was in the process of certifying his loss to Joe Biden, and accused Harris of seeking to censor the free speech rights of Trump and his supporters on social media.

Walz countered that Trump “lost the election and he said he didn’t,” and pointed out that “140 police officers were beaten at the Capitol” and that “several later died.”

“This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen,” Walz continued. “And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say [he lost]. He is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?

“Tim, I'm focused on the future,” Vance responded, before again returning to accusations that Harris had engaged in censorship.

As Walz put it, the question of whether the 2020 election was fairly decided remains a seemingly unbridgeable divide that the parties “are miles apart on” — even as another presidential election looms next month.

Mike Pence vs. JD Vance

During the exchange, Vance referenced former Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump’s supporters threatened during the siege on the Capitol for refusing to go along with his plan to simply reject the slates of electors from key swing states.

“Mike Pence made the right decision,” Walz said, later adding, “That's why Mike Pence isn't on this stage.”

In an 2023 interview on Fox News the day after Trump was indicted for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, Pence explained his belief that the Constitution prohibited him from doing Trump’s bidding.

“President Trump demanded that I use my authority as vice president presiding over the count of the Electoral College to essentially overturn the election by returning or literally rejecting votes,” Pence said. “I had no authority to do that.”

Earlier this month, by contrast, Vance made headlines when declared that if he was vice president in 2020, he would have done what Pence would not.

“I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we had,” Vance said in an interview with the "All-in" podcast.

‘Free and fair’

Campaigning in Milwaukee just before Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, Trump told reporters that all he really wanted in November “is a fair election,” adding, “That’s all. Just a fair, honest election. I hope we’re going to get that.”

That wish has also been expressed by House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, one of Trump’s staunchest allies, who, when asked by a reporter if he would certify the 2024 results of the presidential election, responded, “Well, of course, if we have a free, fair and safe election, we’re going to follow the Constitution.”

Yet, just as he did in 2020, Trump has already begun sowing doubts on the results to come in November.

“If I lose, I tell you what, it’s possible because they cheat, that’s the only way it’s possible we lose, because they cheat,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan last week. “They cheat like hell.”

Trump’s unwavering assertion that foul play cost him victory in 2020 has been enough to convince many of his supporters. Nearly 70% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters now believe Biden’s 2020 victory was not legitimate, according to a CNN poll released in August, despite the fact that Trump lost more than 60 lawsuits filed to challenge the election results and reviews by the Justice Department and independent investigators failed to turn up any evidence of systemic fraud.

‘The future’

The recent discourse shows that the debate around the 2020 election may be replayed come November.

Republicans have recently filed more than 100 lawsuits to challenge the way votes are cast and counted in 2024.

“This is part of creating the narrative that there will be irregularities that will require outside intervention," Columbia Law School professor Richard Briffault told Reuters

Democrats have responded by building their own team of lawyers and staffers to counter those legal challenges, the Associated Press reported.

The Harris campaign said in a statement to Reuters that Republicans are "scheming to sow distrust in our elections and undermine our democracy so they can cry foul when they lose."

In the absence of a definitive legal resolution to the myriad court challenges, the replacement of Pence with Vance on the GOP ticket has taken on heightened importance for the November election.

“What I'm concerned about is where is the firewall with Donald Trump? Where is the firewall? If he knows he could do anything, including taking an election and his vice president is not going to stand to it,” Walz said during the debate.