PITTSBURGH — Democrats at a watch party jeered and laughed at Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as he faced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate — but they didn’t want to declare a winner.
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party packed more than 100 political junkies into Urban Tap on Pittsburgh’s South Side to watch Donald Trump’s and Kamala Harris’ running mates face off.
One after another, attendees said the debate was a tie — then walked their comments back to insist Walz won.
“There wasn’t a clear winner,” Vince DiAngelo, a server from nearby Clairton, told The Post.
DiAngelo was glad to see the two candidates agree on some issues like border problems rather than just yell at each other.
“It gave me some hope,” he said.
But acknowledging he’s a Democrat, DiAngelo said Tim Walz came out on top.
Still, he said, “Vance is far and above Trump,” and would make for a much more competitive presidential contender against Harris.
“He did better than I expected,” said Ellen Ochs, a retired Democratic political operative, of Vance. “Not great. He just didn’t attack the women moderators.” That seemed to be the consensus of the bar where she was swirling a glass of white wine.
Asked who won, Ochs responded, “Can I just not answer that question?”
She finally answered: “It was a tie.”
Then correcting herself: “Walz won, but he had a slip.”
Ochs emphasized that Walz was honest, and that would serve him well with Pennsylvania voters.
“How can you be in Congress and be this honest?” she asked in awe, having worked 40 years in Washington.
At the same time, she wished Walz would cut to the chase when asked about reporting showing he lied about being in Hong Kong during the 1989 Chinese pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests.
“It was not a win or lose,” said Michele Margittai, a writer and nonprofit professional who said she quit her job to volunteer for the Harris campaign.
“I appreciated how Vance talked about child care and providing for your children,” from communal support to single-earner families like hers, she continued, noticing Walz nodded his head in agreement with the Republican.
“People can relate to that,” her husband, Peter, chimed in.
“There are a lot of people who are really struggling,” she explained as we walked past homeless people camped out in storefronts outside the bar. “This debate helped people hear about issues that matter to everyday people.”
She added, “The people who really won this debate was the American people.”
