Boston.com readers are nearly split on who won Wednesday’s vice presidential debate

Here’s what some readers had to say about the vice presidential debate.

Some submissions were lightly edited for length and clarity.“This was much better than the last debate and was civil and polite. The moderator did a good job. I liked her approach when somebody went on too long to just keep saying ‘I’m sorry, your time is up’ repeatedly drowning out the lengthy response.”“VP Mike Pence constantly went over his time and rarely addressed the question he was asked. Often he went back to previous question[s] to provide broad sweeping generalization. Senator Harris brought facts and historical evidence to the debate along with some bad ‘Mumma’ looks to keep Pence in line!”“I wished they would just answer the question. I think Harris came with more information where Pence had nothing new. He just kept repeating sound bites.”“I thought Mike Pence held his own surprisingly. However, the clear winner was Kamala Harris. She is brilliant and outstaged Pence.”“Pence’s disregard for the rules, somehow acknowledging Susan while simultaneously steamrolling over her and Kamala Harris, made me and my female friends cringe. All women have experienced this. And it reinforces that the current administration believes the rules don’t apply to them – even when they agree to said rules.”“Kamala was emotional. I could tell that she did not have a substantial command of the subjects. Normally, people who rely upon emotional responses are not well versed in the issues. While VP Pence was very respectful, I wish that he would have brought structure and clarity to the debate with more facts.”“I felt more comfortable listening to him, he was calm and resilient. I did not feel our country is covered by [a] dark cloud.”“A good performance by both candidates. Well executed. Pence came across as confident and deeply knowledgeable.”“Senator Harris was emotional and flustered. She did not have any solid rebuttals to the direct and factual claims from VP Pence and oftentimes did not use her entire 2:00 to make a claim on the policies of her administration. I was very disappointed with her non-response to packing the court as well as her non-response defending her terrible record in SF. The Biden Harris platform speaks in popular generalities with the hopes that no one will challenge them on facts and records. Pence did an outstanding job putting the campaign’s feet to the fire. You know it was a win for the republicans when all the media can talk about post-debate is a rogue fly and pink eye.”“Pence seemed more relaxed and confident in his answers. Both dodged questions which is not a surprise. I felt Harris was weak on the important issues of tax raises (everyone’s taxes go up and SALT caps actually hinder the wealthy more), how they would have done anything different on Covid and her climate answers were weak. The Paris climate accord sounds great but the results matter and Pence highlighted the US progress absent the accord. Makes no sense to me to spend $$ in the accord for other countries’ lack of progress. The default seems to be deaths and job losses when feeling vulnerable. The public knows both of those are Covid based and the jobs are impacted as much by local leadership as by DC.”

Emily Turner

Community deputy editor

Emily Turner is the community deputy editor for Boston.com, where she oversees reader engagement.

Want to leave a comment?

Create an Account Or sign in to your account

To comment, please create a screen name in your profile

To comment, please verify your email address

Conversation

This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com