The University of Kentucky Lewis Honors College held a watch party for the vice presidential debate that was open to all students.
The watch party opened its doors at 7:30 p.m. in the Lewis Honors College Scholars Lounge on Tuesday, Oct. 1. Students both enrolled and not enrolled in the Lewis Honors College attended the event.
Republican National Committee Treasurer KC Crosbie and Executive Director of the Kentucky Democratic Party Morgan Eaves also attended the beginning of the event to answer some questions about the vice presidential candidates and issues of discussion in the election.
Crosbie and Eaves debated a few issues like abortion and the merit of each candidate running for vice president. They also answered questions students asked during the first 30 minutes of the event.
Eaves said being invited to the event was an opportunity to reach out to young voters.
“It’s a great opportunity to talk to young people. In this election and every election they can be the deciding vote,” Eaves said. “It’s important that they know not only about the issues, but about how they can get involved.”
Crosbie said the debate would be a display of both the opposing views of the candidates and also how they will support their respective running mates.
“The rule usually … is don’t do anything stupid, don’t mess up and support your candidate, I think we’re going to see that tonight,” Crosbie said. “The job tonight is to do no harm, but also relay a message particularly to the undecided voters of why we believe our ticket is the best ticket to vote for.”
Both Crosbie and Eaves said they believed it was important for people to be informed on the candidate’s positions in a debate with less misinformation and rumors.
Eaves also said students and people watching the debate in general should be compelled to verify facts and information on their own, as the debate moderators would not fact check every claim by the candidates.
“It’s amazing that students are taking this much interest in a debate watch party,” Crosbie said, noting that people were moving more chairs into the room to accommodate the amount of students that showed up.
Sherelle Roberts, a lecturer in the Lewis Honors College, set up and planned the event. She said she hoped to share her love of politics to students.
“I’m a political scientist, so I’m obsessed with politics,” Roberts said. “We wanted to extend it to everyone because … not that many people watch vice presidential debates.”
Going into the debate, both Sherelle Roberts and students believed it would be similar to the presidential debate.
Roberts said that she wanted to see a “civil debate where policy is discussed,” but didn’t think it was going to happen.
“I think this has been one of the least civil elections that we’ve had, I think it’s been one of the least substantive … in terms of policy,” Roberts said. “Gov. Walz and Sen.Vance are the attack dogs of this campaign, so this is gonna be spicy.”
Sawyer Covey, a freshman majoring in political science, said he mainly came to the debate hoping it would be entertaining.
Covey said that while he was “very much so” interested in politics, he felt like the debate would only serve to further polarize voters when news channels only show highlights of the debate, favoring certain political leanings.
Throughout the hour and a half debate, students sat down holding debate bingo cards and snacks provided to them by the Lewis Honors College.
Walz and Vance discussed numerous topics over the course of the debate: gun control, abortion, issues in the Middle East and the state of democracy in the U.S.
Several parts of the debate drew laughs from the audience, specifically when Walz and Vance’s microphones were cut.
Roberts said the debate surprised her, as did some students. She said that though she had “for sure” noticed false statements, she was pleased that the majority of the debate was actual discussion of policy issues.
“Both of them said ‘oh, I agree with Tim, oh I agree with JD,’” Roberts said. “I think it’s interesting that they were willing to be more reasonable than the top of the ticket, which is not what you expect from a vice presidential candidate.”
Covey said he was similarly pleasantly surprised, and he hoped it would show people a more civil side of politics.
“I have not seen two politicians who are in competition with each other … who have agreed with each other and had a mutual respect for each other,” Covey said. “Both candidates see the humanity in the other candidate, and I find that very admirable.”
Covey said a highlight of the debate for him was the discussion of Jan. 6, 2020, specifically how Vance and Walz approached perceived threats to democracy by both parties.
“I think it was in his (Vance’s) best interest to handle those questions the exact way he did,” Covey said.
While Covey said he thought both candidates performed well and got their points across, he said the parts of the debate where Walz paused might be focused on by the media.
“It has nothing to do with his performance … but there were times where he was done talking and the moderators just weren’t picking up on that,” Covey said. “ (But) I hope the biggest thing is that people can observe what mutual respect between politicians that disagree on a lot can look like.”
