Democrats in North Carolina are taking a localized, community-based approach to incentivize voters to turn out in the 2024 election.

Fox News Digital spoke with the North Carolina Democratic Party about their ground game this cycle, which they say is focused on local messaging and running a campaign in every corner of the state.

“Folks are responding to the fact that we are taking a careful, thoughtful, community, place-based approach to everything we’re doing,” Jonah Garson, first vice chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, told Fox in an exclusive interview. “The North Carolina Democratic Party has built an organizing machine that’s running everywhere, giving folks, people in their own communities, people to vote for who are present in committees, who people see, who people know.”

The Old North State is one of the key battleground states in presidential elections, and Garson believes that it is the ground game that will have the greatest impact at the polls.

RESIDENTS IN KEY NORTH CAROLINA DISTRICT REVEAL HOW THEY THINK THEIR COUNTY WILL VOTE IN NOVEMBER

“We are staying focused on running a great ground game because we know it’s not salacious headlines or magic abracadabra on a TV commercial that will win battleground North Carolina,” he said. “It’s going to be the work that North Carolinians do on the ground and at the doors and on the phones.”

NORTH CAROLINA GOP FOCUSING ON ‘HAND-TO-HAND POLITICAL COMBAT’ TO RAMP UP GROUND GAME IN BATTLEGROUND STATE

The Democratic Party has been actively working on their 2024 ground game for the past two years, and expect to have reached over a million people through combined canvassing efforts in the state come Election Day.

“You cannot just expect to have direct voter contact in the last few months of the election to reach people. It takes sort of a ramp and scale operation over time that’s thoughtful,” Garson said.

The party is also focusing on reaching people across all parties, not just Democratic voters.

“In North Carolina there’s a ton of work to do among registered Dems and registered unaffiliated whose values are aligned with the Democratic Party, which is a big tent party. I mean, we have all sorts of moderates and progressives and conservatives all in this party at this point, but who may or may not vote because they frankly feel alienated by the process or disgusted by what they’re seeing out of the process,” he said. “And it is about very personal, very honest conversations with people.”

Garson told Fox that after speaking with voters across the state, most North Carolinians are concerned about being able to thrive in their home communities moving forward.

Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz brought together two candidates with different visions for the future of America.

Their body language also sharply contrasted with one another as Vance espoused a sense of calmness and command of the issues, whereas Walz appeared nervous and overly fidgety at times, although he did manage to find his stride later in the debate, body language expert Carole Lieberman, M.D., tells Fox News Digital. 

“What JD Vance had that made him most likable and most trusted was that he was authentic… you could just say it in one word. JD Vance was authentic. He did big hand movements and so on, but they were just to explain what he was saying,” Lieberman said. 

TOP 5 CLASHES BETWEEN VANCE AND WALZ DURING DEBATE SHOWDOWN: ‘YOUR MICS ARE CUT’

“JD Vance came across as being very steady, like you can kind of see him as a captain of the ship, and he wasn’t too stiff, but you knew what you were going to get. Each time he seemed sure of himself… And so you felt like you would be safe with him. He gave an air of stability,” Lieberman added. 

That ran counter to Walz, whom Lieberman said was anxious and jittery, particularly at the beginning of the debate. 

“With Tim Walz, he was all over the place. He was very nervous, and he also had body language signs of lying. His body language was discordant with what he was saying. It was like too much, it made you feel exhausted and scared.”

Lieberman says Walz fumbled his question about being in Tiananmen Square for the deadly protests in the spring of 1989. Walz previously said he was in Hong Kong during the protests, but Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets report that Walz actually did not travel to China until August of that year. 

CBS News moderator Margaret Brennan asked Walz to explain the discrepancy. Walz initially tried to talk around the question but eventually admitted he “misspoke” after calling himself a “knucklehead at times.”

“He was so defensive, he was just talking in circles and didn’t want to admit that he had lied. If he had said that at the very beginning, it would have been more honest.”

ABC’S LINSEY DAVIS ADMITS FACT-CHECKING OF TRUMP WAS BECAUSE CNN LET HIS STATEMENTS ‘HANG’ AT FIRST DEBATE

Lieberman says body language plays an important role in debates, as people may not give their full attention to the entire debate and some topics interest people more than others. 

She says 40-year-old Vance came across as the more experienced politician, even though he has only served in the Senate since January 2023, whereas Walz served in Congress from 2007 to 2019 before going on to be governor of Minnesota.

“[Walz] seemed like he was the new politician, like he was just trying to figure these things out. He was always looking down… I mean yes, it’s OK to take notes when you’re talking but… he was frantically taking notes like, ‘Oh man I better say that’ and ‘This is the answer to that.’ It really didn’t seem to help him much, but I think it was a nervous compensation.”

“Whereas with JD you could see the Yale debater,” Lieberman said. 

“He obviously has had… years and years of practice, debating in college and as a lawyer and so on. You read about or heard about both of them practicing, but if it’s coming from an authentic place, you don’t really have to practice that much. You know what you want to do and you just say it. Whereas if you’re hiding things by squirreling around, then you do have to practice to make sure you don’t say that, or you do say that. And that’s kind of how it came across.”

The CBS News Vice Presidential Debate showcased the two candidates’ platforms on issues such as the ongoing war raging in the Middle East, abortion laws and their respective tickets’ economic records. During the 90-minute debate, Vance and Walz had a handful of clashes, including moderators turning off Vance’s microphone.

Commentators on both sides of the political spectrum largely agreed that Vance won the debate with a more polished performance in what was a highly policy-driven event devoid of personal attacks. The pair were seen shaking hands and chatting immediately after the debate. 

Lieberman says Vance was confident in prosecuting the case for the Trump ticket and was comfortable arguing the issues the Republican Party stands for. 

“He wanted to ‘Let’s go, I can’t wait to do this, I’m going to do it’… he’s Trump lite,” Lieberman said. “It’s kind of the authenticity that I want to take care of America, I want to make America great again, all of that just came through naturally and by the end, you just kind of wanted him to push Tim Walz away. ‘You’re making me nervous’ kind of thing and with JD Vance you just kind of felt ‘OK, that’s good.’”

Lieberman says it appears that Walz’s strategy was to blame Trump, in large part, for many of the issues or cite Trump when responding to answers, and when that line of response became ineffective, he appeared lost. 

“Walz was nervous, in parts, and then he had some signs of lying, like, for example, fidgeting. Mainly his movements were discordant with what he was saying. These puppy dog looks at Vance did him in, in my opinion… He was practicing what to say bad about Trump and that was not a good plan.”

Lieberman says Walz also had some “brain freeze moments.”

“You could call it a senior moment, he would stare and you were wondering, ‘Is he going to go on? Is there more?’ And that was very sort of worrying,” Lieberman said. 

“Throughout the 90 minutes, you would find yourself getting more and more nervous, anxious, irritated by Tim Walz, whereas you were beginning to feel calmer and as though things were going to be OK with JD Vance. And even if you couldn’t hear the words that they were speaking and you were just watching them, this is how you would feel.”

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance on Tuesday said he wanted to focus on the future when asked about former President Trump’s denials that he lost the 2020 election – an answer that drew negative reactions from some voters, according to the Fox News Debate Dial.

Vance was asked by Democratic candidate Gov. Tim Walz whether Trump lost the 2020 election, something that Trump has repeatedly denied, and which led to the protests on Jan 6, 2021.

“This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen, and it manifested itself because of Donald Trump’s inability to say – he is still saying he didn’t lose the election,” Walz said. “Did he lose the 2020 election?”

VOTERS REACT TO JD VANCE CLAIMING HE AND DONALD TRUMP SUPPORT ‘CLEAR AIR, CLEAN WATER’ 

Vance attempted to put the ball back in Walz’s court.

“Tim, I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?” he responded.

Walz called it a “damning non-answer.”

“It’s a damning non-answer for you to not talk about censorship,” Vance said, going on to say that there were “problems” in 2020.

Republicans on the Fox News Debate Dial had been unimpressed with Walz’s line of questioning and the dial went down, with the approval staying generally the same with Vance’s answers, but the dials for independents and Democrats took a sharp dive as Vance brushed off the question. It dove the sharpest among independents.

TOP 5 MOMENTS FROM ONLY VP DEBATE BETWEEN VANCE AND WALZ BEFORE ELECTION

“But you guys attack us for not believing in democracy,” Vance then said. “The most sacred right under the United States democracy is the First Amendment. You yourself have said there’s no First Amendment right to misinformation. Kamala Harris wants to use the power of government and Big Tech to silence people from speaking their minds. That is a threat to democracy that will long outlive this present political moment.” 

“I would like Democrats and Republicans to both reject censorship. Let’s persuade one another. Let’s argue about ideas, and then let’s come together.”

As he spoke, the Republican dials increased significantly, the independent dial improved slightly and Democrats’ approval stayed generally the same.

Walz responded with a reference to the alleged limits on free speech.

“You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater – that’s the test, that’s the Supreme Court test.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz “embarrassed himself” during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, while Sen. JD Vance’s steady presentation “reconfirmed” his choice to make the senator from Ohio his running mate.

Trump spoke exclusively with Fox News Digital on Wednesday morning, hours after Vance, R-Ohio, and Walz faced off in the CBS News vice presidential debate in New York City. The two sparred on issues like foreign policy, border security, abortion and climate change, while introducing themselves and their records to the American people. 

VANCE, WALZ SPAR OVER ABORTION AND IMMIGRATION IN FIRST AND ONLY VP DEBATE

“JD was fantastic last night — it just reconfirmed my choice,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “There was a brilliance to what he did.” 

“On the other hand, Tim Walz proved to be a man that doesn’t have it in any way shape or form for the office that he is seeking, though I would put him a large number of steps above Kamala,” Trump said.

The former president and Republican presidential nominee said Walz “embarrassed himself and the Democrat Party last night but was made to look even worse by JD’s brilliant performance.” 

“This is what the country needs; smart people, not people that can’t put two sentences together,” Trump said. “We have to take our country back.” 

Vice presidential debates are traditionally seen as second-tier, but with Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris unlikely to debate again before voters cast their ballots on Nov. 5, the stakes were raised for their running mates as they attempted to tackle the most important issues facing the nation. 

CBS News anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan moderated the debate in New York City Tuesday night, which was filled with more substantive policy discussion than personal jabs. Tuesday began with nearly 50,000 unionized dockworkers going on strike from Maine to Texas and ended with Iran launching its largest attack on Israel in history, firing nearly 250 ballistic missiles at the Jewish State. 

The first question for Walz and Vance was whether they would support a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran. 

A visibly shaky Walz had a rough start to the debate, pausing and stumbling over his words as he spoke about the need for “steady leadership” from the White House. Instead of answering the question, Walz took a shot at Trump. 

“What’s fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter,” Walz said, pointing to Trump’s debate performance against Harris last month. “It’s clear, and the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago. A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment.” 

But Vance, in his first answer, defended Trump, saying he “delivered stability to the world, and he did it by establishing effective deterrence.” 

WALZ FORCED TO CORRECT RECORD ON WHETHER HE WAS IN CHINA FOR THE TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTESTS

“People were afraid of stepping out of line,” Vance said. “Donald Trump recognized that for people to fear the United States, you needed peace through strength. They needed to recognize that if they got out of line, the United States’ global leadership would put stability and peace back in the world.” 

As for a preemptive strike, Vance said, “It is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are, when they’re fighting the bad guys.”

Walz fired back. He slammed the Trump administration for pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, saying Iran is “closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before because of Donald Trump’s fickle leadership,” adding Harris is providing “steady leadership.” 

“You blame Donald Trump, but who has been the vice president for the last 3½ years? And the answer is, your running mate, not mine,” Vance said. 

Vance, again defending Trump, saying he “consistently made the world more secure.” 

“Gov. Walz can criticize Donald Trump’s tweets, but effective, smart diplomacy and peace through strength is how you bring stability back to a very broken world,” Vance said. “Donald Trump has already done it once before.” 

Vance also urged voters to ask themselves, “When was the last time that an American president didn’t have a major conflict break out?” 

“The only answer is during the four years that Donald Trump was president,” Vance said. 

The debate shifted to the ongoing crisis at the southern border, a top issue for voters. 

Vance said he has already been to the border more than “border czar” Kamala Harris, while touting Trump’s plan to secure the border. 

But Walz blasted Trump for his alleged efforts to get Republicans to vote against a border bill. 

VANCE, WALZ SPAR ON IMMIGRATION DURING VP DEBATE: BEEN TO THE BORDER ‘MORE THAN OUR BORDER CZAR’

“As soon as it was getting ready to pass and actually tackle this, Donald Trump said no, told [lawmakers] to vote against it, because it gives him a campaign issue,” Walz said. “What would Donald Trump talk about if we actually did some of these things?”

On the same topic, moderators asked Vance whether he and Trump would support family separation as part of Trump’s proposed “mass deportation” should he be elected. 

“We have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost,” Vance explained. “Some of them have been sex trafficking. Some of them, hopefully, are at homes with their families.

“Some of them have been used as drug trafficking mules. The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris’ wide open southern border. And I’d ask my fellow Americans to remember when she came into office, she said she was going to do this. Real leadership would be saying, ‘You know what, I screwed up. We’re going to go back to Donald Trump’s border policies.’ I wish that she would do that. It would be good for all of us.” 

As for the issue of abortion, another top issue for voters this cycle, Walz maintained that he and Harris are pro-choice, while Vance said Republicans need to “do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue, where they, frankly, just don’t trust us.” 

“And I think that’s one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do. I want us, as a Republican Party, to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word. I want us to support fertility treatments. I want us to make it easier for moms to afford to have babies,” Vance said. “I want to make it easier for young families to afford a home so they can afford a place to raise that family. And I think there’s so much that we can do on the public policy front just to give women more options right now.”

Gov. Tim Walz received steady support from independent and Democratic debate watchers during his remarks on immigration, except when he bashed former President Trump on the issue.

A focus group reacted live to the vice presidential debate on Tuesday, pitting Democratic nominee Walz against Republican Sen. JD Vance. 

“We all want to solve this, most of us want to solve this,” Walz said as he spoke of the immigration crisis during the debate.

Democratic and independent support for Walz was high as he talked about the issue of the fentanyl and opioid crisis. 

TOP 5 CLASHES BETWEEN VANCE AND WALZ DURING DEBATE SHOWDOWN: ‘YOUR MICS ARE CUT’

Support from both Democrats and independents spiked when Walz said Vice President Kamala Harris was “the only person in this race who prosecuted transnational gangs for human trafficking and drug interventions.”

Support from independent and Democratic respondents remained steady for the majority of his remarks on the issue of immigration.

VANCE VS. WALZ DEBATE LEAVES AMERICANS WITH THIS BIG TAKEAWAY

However, independent support for Walz dropped when he suggested that “Donald Trump said no” to border legislation, “because it gives him a campaign issue.”

“What would Donald Trump talk about if we actually did some of these things?” Walz said, prompting a significant decline in support from independent viewers.

“Donald Trump had four years. He had four years to do this. And he promised you, America, how easy it would be. I’ll build you a big beautiful wall, and Mexico will pay for it. Less than 2% of that wall got built and Mexico didn’t pay a dime,” Walz said, to which Democratic viewer support began to rise.

Republican viewers maintained an unfavorable view of Walz as he spoke about the immigration crisis.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris each travel to the storm-ravaged Southeast on Wednesday, as the death toll and devastation from Hurricane Helene soars and a couple of million people remain without power and running water.

Over 160 people have been killed by Helene since the hurricane made landfall in Florida late Thursday before tearing a path of destruction through the interior Southeast. The storm sparked millions of power outages and billions of dollars in property damage as it smashed through the southern Appalachian Mountains and into the Tennessee Valley. 

As the floodwaters from the storm receded, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper lamented that in the western part of his state “communities were wiped off the map.”

NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENTS FIGHT FOR THEIR SURVIVAL

North Carolina and Georgia, which was also hard hit by the storm, are two of the seven key battlegrounds whose razor-thin margins decided Biden’s 2020 election victory over former President Trump and are expected to determine the outcome of the 2024 showdown between Harris and Trump.

And with a margin-of-error race between the vice president and Trump with less than five weeks to go until Election Day on Nov. 5, and with the former president during a trip to the storm-damaged region earlier this week blasting both Biden and Harris over the federal response, the hurricane has become front-and-center in the White House race.

RESCUE MISSIONS UNDERWAY IN NORTH CAROLINA AFTER HURRICANE HELENE BRINGS ‘HISTORIC’ FLOODING, LANDSLIDES

The president on Wednesday heads to North Carolina, where he’ll survey damage from a helicopter flight over the city of Ashville, one of the hardest hit areas. Biden will also visit a rescue command center in the state before also stopping in neighboring South Carolina.

“My top priority is to ensure the communities devastated by this hurricane get the help and support they need as quickly as possible,” Biden told reporters Tuesday as he spoke during a Cabinet meeting focusing on the federal response.

Trump this past weekend accused the president of “sleeping” at his beach house in Delaware as the storm blasted the Southeast.

And speaking with reporters as he arrived in Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, the former president charged that “the federal government is not being responsive.” 

And he falsely claimed that Biden had not spoken with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a conservative Republican.

Pushing back against the political attacks, Biden has noted that he was on the phone with federal, state and local officials throughout the weekend and returned to the nation’s capital on Sunday afternoon to monitor storm rescue and relief efforts.

HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON HELENE’S HAVOC

“We had over 1,000 federal personnel, including search and rescue teams, at the ready on the ground before it hit,” the president said on Tuesday. “Over the past several days, I’ve been in regular contact with the governors, the mayors, the county officials, and all the affected areas. That includes Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Virginia.”

And Biden emphasized that his administration has sent “every available resource that we have at our disposal to the affected region” and pledged “we’ll be there until this work is done.”

Trump on Sunday attacked Harris for attending “fundraising events with her radical left lunatic donors” in California over the weekend. And he argued that Harris “ought to be down in the area” where the storm caused destruction.

On Monday during his stop in Georgia, Trump repeated the dig, saying, “The vice president, she’s out someplace campaigning looking for money.”

The White House has highlighted that the vice president over the weekend was on the phone with federal, state and local officials. 

Harris said on Saturday that she and the president “remain committed to ensuring that no community or state has to respond to this disaster alone.”

On Monday, Harris visited FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] headquarters in Washington, D.C., where she received a briefing on relief and rescue efforts.

“We will do everything in our power to help communities respond and recover,” Harris vowed.

Harris on Wednesday travels to Georgia to survey the impacts of the storm and receive an on-the-ground briefing and provide updates on the federal response.

Harris was originally scheduled to take part Wednesday in a campaign bus swing through central Pennsylvania, another key battleground state, with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

With the vice president headed to Georgia, Walz will headline the bus tour, which comes the day after he faced off in the running mates debate against Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the GOP vice presidential nominee.

During his Monday stop in Georgia, Trump highlighted that “I’ve come to Valdosta with large semi-trucks, many of them, filled with relief aid. A tanker truck filled up with gasoline, a couple of big tanker trucks filled up with gasoline, which they can’t get now. And we’ll be working to distribute it throughout the day.”

And a GoFundMe page set up by the Trump campaign earlier this week has raised nearly $4 million so far for storm victims.

Presidents and vice presidents often don’t travel immediately to storm-damaged areas, to prevent their trips from hampering badly needed rescue and relief efforts.

“I’m committed to traveling to the impacted areas as soon as possible, but I’ve been told that it would be disruptive if I did it right now. We will not do that at the risk of diverting or delaying any of the response assets needed to deal with this crisis,” Biden told reporters on Monday.

And Harris said on Tuesday, “I plan to be on the ground as soon as possible – but as soon as possible without disrupting any emergency response operations, because that must be the highest priority and the first order of business.”

But the optics of Trump’s Monday stop in Georgia may have put some political pressure on Biden and Harris.

Longtime Republican strategist David Kochel said Trump had been “very aggressive” with his quick trip to the storm-damaged region. 

“I think he put a lot of pressure on them to try to do something,” Kochel, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaigns, told Fox News. “He’s out there pushing a line that they don’t care – they’re not doing anything and I think they’re reacting to it.”

The response by elected officials to natural disasters can impact their political standing.

President George W. Bush was heavily criticized in the summer of 2005 for his initial response to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans.

And Trump faced criticism early in his White House tenure as Puerto Rico struggled to recover from a powerful storm. The president was pilloried for throwing paper towels to the crowd as he stopped by a relief center during a storm-related visit to the island.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

A focus group of Democrats, independents and Republicans reacted to the moment when Gov. Tim Walz called himself a “knucklehead” for claiming to have been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Moderators confronted Walz on the claim during the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate Tuesday night. Walz admitted that he only traveled to Asia in August 1989, several months after the April 15 massacre. The focus group found that voters were initially skeptical of Walz’s answer, but he eventually recovered.

“Can you explain that discrepancy?” a moderator asked, as the focus group remained neutral.

“Look, I grew up in small rural Nebraska, a town of 400. A town that you rode your bikes with your buddies until the streetlights come on, and I’m proud of that service. I joined the national guard at 17, worked on family farms, and then I used the GI bill to become a teacher. Passionate about it. Young teacher. My first year out, I got the opportunity in the summer of ’89 to travel to China–35 years ago, to be able to do that,” Walz said.

ABC DEBATE MODERATORS SPARK FURY FOR AGGRESSIVE FACT-CHECKING OF TRUMP, EASY TREATMENT OF HARRIS

“I came back home and started a program to take young people there. We would take basketball teams, we would take baseball teams, we would take dancers, and we would go back and forth to China,” he added.

JD VANCE REMINDS CBS MODERATORS OF DEBATE RULES AFTER THEY TRY TO FACT-CHECK HIM

The focus group showed support from Republicans, independents and Democrats all going down for Walz during the first portion of his response.

However, Walz recovered among independents and Democrats when he went on to admit that he can be “a knucklehead at times.”

“Many times I will talk a lot. I will get caught up in the rhetoric,” he said, as support from independents rose above 50% in the focus group.

WATCH: TOP 5 MOMENTS FROM THE DEBATE:

Walz’s support among Republicans dipped to its lowest point – under 10% – when he said former President Donald Trump would have benefited from participating in one of his China trips, arguing Trump would never have befriended Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Republican, Democrat and independent voters reacted differently when Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, stated that he and former President Trump support “clean air, clean water” while responding to a question on the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate stage about climate change, the Fox News Debate Dial showed. 

“Look, a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns. I think it’s important for us, first of all, to say, Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water. We want the environment to be cleaner and safer,” Vance said.

The Fox News Debate Dial showed support among independents and Democrats dipping downward when Vance made that statement. Support among Republicans remained fairly consistent. 

But support among independent viewers began to rise again when Vance referenced how Democrats bring up carbon emissions when discussing climate change. 

“This idea that carbon emissions drives all of the climate change. Well, let’s just say that’s true just for the sake of argument. So we’re not arguing about weird science. Let’s just say that’s true,” Vance said. “Well, if you believe that, what would you — would you want to do? The answer is that you’d want to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible, and you’d want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.” 

TIM WALZ: THE SOLUTION IS TO ‘MOVE FORWARD’ WITH IDEA THAT ‘CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL’

The dial for independents remained flat as Vance moved into criticizing Kamala Harris on energy policy. Support among Democrats took a dive by contrast. 

“What have Kamala Harris policies actually lead to more energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas, more doing business in some of the dirtiest parts of the entire world,” Vance said. “When I say that, I mean the amount of carbon emissions they’re doing per unit of economic output. So, if we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people. And unfortunately, Kamala Harris has done exactly the opposite.” 

CBS News host Nora O’Donnell began her question by noting how more than 160 were dead and hundreds more were missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. 

MAST DEMANDS VA FIRE STAFFERS OVER VANCE, WALZ MEDICAL RECORD BREACH, FBI PROBE POSSIBLE FOREIGN INTERFERENCE

“Scientists say climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger and more deadly because of the historic rainfall,” she said. “Senator Vance, according to CBS news polling, 7 in 10 Americans and more than 60% of Republicans under the age of 45 favor the U.S. taking steps to try and reduce climate change. Senator, what responsibility would the Trump administration have to try and reduce the impact of climate change?” 

Vance began his response by recognizing the hurricane as “an unbelievable, unspeakable human tragedy” and recalling a photograph of grandparents and a six-year-old child on a roof that later collapsed, causing those people to lose their lives. “I’m sure Governor Waltz joins me and saying, our hearts go out to those innocent people, our prayers go out to them,” Vance said. “And we want as robust and aggressive as a federal response as we can get to save as many lives as possible. And then, of course, afterwards to help the people in those communities rebuild.” 

When the Republican vice presidential nominee referenced Appalachia and said he knew impacted people personally across the Southeast who “need their government to do their job,” the Fox News Debate Dial showed support spiked drastically among Republican viewers, and also rose for independents. For Democrats, the dial seemed to dip down, especially when Vance added, “I commit that when Donald Trump is president again, the government will put the citizens of this country first when they suffer from a disaster.” 

One of Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s biggest debate moments was when he explained his complete reversal of feelings about his running mate.

Vance was asked at the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate on Tuesday how he went from calling Trump potentially “America’s Hitler” and an “idiot” to joining the former president’s 2024 ticket.

“Sometimes, of course, I’ve disagreed with the president, but I’ve also been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump. I was wrong, first of all, because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record,” Vance said Tuesday night. 

TOP 5 CLASHES BETWEEN VANCE AND WALZ DURING DEBATE SHOWDOWN: ‘YOUR MICS ARE CUT’

He continued, “But most importantly, Donald Trump delivered for the American people rising wages, rising take-home pay, an economy that worked for normal Americans, a secure southern border. A lot of things, frankly, that I didn’t think he’d be able to deliver on.”

Fox News’ Debate Dial audience feedback system showed viewers’ approval rates shooting in different directions during Vance’s explanation of how he came to be a Trump supporter. 

Republican audience approval surged past 80% and at one point even over 90%, maintaining solid support throughout Vance’s statement.

VOTER PANEL REACTS TO VANCE CLASH WITH DEBATE MODERATORS, MIC CUTOFF: ‘YOU’RE FACT CHECKING ME’

Meanwhile, Democratic viewers expressed discontent – ratings from Democrats fell below 40% and at one point bottomed out near 20%.

Vance emphasized that there were mistakes made in the first Trump administration that he wishes could have been handled better, but placed a significant portion of blame on Congress.

“There were a lot of things on the border, on tariffs, for example, where I think that we could have done so much more if the Republican Congress and the Democrats in Congress had been a little bit better about how they govern the country. They were so obsessed with impeaching Donald Trump, they couldn’t actually govern,” Vance said.

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Debate Dial data showed independents were more tempered in their reactions to the segment, hovering mostly between 40% and 60% approval.

A Democrat running to represent New Jersey in the U.S. House said she is “not super worried” about biological men being in women’s locker rooms, as she says she supports them being allowed on women’s sports teams.

Sue Altman, who played basketball at Columbia University before playing professionally in Ireland and Germany, told potential voters at a town hall in Phillipsburg last week that she “got such a benefit from Title IX” but that she did not have an issue with “our trans brothers and sisters” being added to women’s athletics, according to the New York Post.

“If we decide as a society that making rules about who is and who isn’t female is more important than giving young children a chance to be on teams and compete and to be part of something bigger than themselves, especially young people who are more susceptible to suicide and bullying, then I think we’ve lost our way a little bit,” Altman said.

“As someone who’s been working to advocate for women’s rights and women’s sports, I promise you that in the locker rooms of women’s sports teams, we’re not super worried about this,” she continued. “We’ve been worried about getting equal access to gym time, good referees, good trainers so you don’t get injured, fair shake at scholarships, equal pay at the higher levels.”

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Altman, a former leader of New Jersey’s progressive Working Families Party, seeks to defeat Republican incumbent Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District in next month’s election. The race is currently ranked as a toss-up, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Last year, Kean voted in favor of a House bill to provide protections for women’s only athletics, a proposal that passed the lower chamber.

The issue of transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports has been controversial in recent years, as biological men have taken first prize over women in the U.S. and in international competition. There have also been cases of women being injured in competition by transgender athletes and women expressing discomfort about changing in the same locker room as a biological male.

The percentage of Americans who believe athletes must play on teams that correspond with their biological sex rose from 62% in 2021 to 69% in 2023, according to a Gallop survey.

According to the survey, a majority of Democrats in 2021 supported athletes participating in sports based on their gender identity, whereas in 2023, more Democrats believed athletes should be on teams that correspond with their biological sex.

Studies have found that transgender women athletes hold a competitive advantage over biological women even after hormone therapy.

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“This is a place where people care about girls sports, and I respect that,” Altman said. “And I also know that I grew up with people who are now trans, who have transitioned from boy to girl or girl to boy, and those people struggled in adolescence.”

“And I will let individual sport committees decide the highest, highest level things, but at the very heart of it, we have to respect people of all genders and give young children, especially young people and adolescents struggling with their gender identity, the chance to compete,” she said.