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Most News Outlets Claim Pence as Debate Winner. But...Did Kaine Actually Lose?

Associated Press

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine is getting a rough treatment for his debate performance Tuesday night, a hard-driving style that showed off the former governor’s attack dog skills. Did Kaine lose the debate? 

You’ve heard the news: Mike Pence won the vice presidential debate. That’s the collective wisdom that has emerged since Tuesday night. But did Tim Kaine really lose? Geoff Skelley at the University of Virginia Center for Politics says the Clinton campaign now has all kinds of video footage of Pence refusing to stand by his candidate.

“Perhaps there is something to having Pence not even really being able to defend a lot of the things that Kaine was quoting during the debate."

Even when Pence criticized Kaine’s record on taxes when he was governor of Virginia, Kaine ignored it and went right back on the attack.

“If Tim Kaine were not focused as narrowly as he was, he would have taken that bait and started defending Virginia."

That’s Quentin Kidd at Christopher Newport University.

"But you’ll notice he just passed it right on by. He didn’t even comment on it, he went right back to Donald Trump. And so I think that demonstrated to me a level of focus on the part of Tim Kaine."

Kidd says Kaine may have lost the news cycle. But he may have won a larger victory, planting the seeds of a longer strategy by going after Donald Trump as someone doesn’t have the temperament to be president. 

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