Normally, Monday nights in the fall only feature one game — and sometimes not even that, although the Broncos did take the Chargers into OT last night before losing 19-16.

Last night, political junkies had at least three games to choose in Debate Night, all of which turned into slugfests. Let’s start in Ohio, where the race to fill Rob Portman’s US Senate seat has been a virtual tie between Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance. It got nasty between the two, and Vance finally had enough of Ryan’s accusations of racism. He let Ryan have it between the eyes, reminding voters that his family is itself an American melting-pot story:

J.D. Vance: "My own children, my biracial children, get attacked by scumbags online and in person because you are so desperate for political power that you'll accuse me, the father of three beautiful biracial babies, of engaging in racism. We are sick of it." pic.twitter.com/gPH5wIQMz8

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 17, 2022

Ryan didn’t do much better on the follow-up either, as Rebecca Downs recounts at Townhall:

As the moderators tried to move on, Ryan shot back “hold on, I think I’ve struck a nerve with this guy,” which Vance acknowledged he did, since “normal people, Tim Ryan, when you insult their families, you strike a nerve.” Ryan denied he talked about his family and told Vance “don’t try to spin this,” again connecting him to the “extremists” with the Great Replacement Theory, which Vance called “disgusting” and emphasized he didn’t believe in.

Ryan may have tried to amplify his attacks in the wake of a poll from last week’s debate. Voters were relatively unimpressed with Ryan’s first performance:

OHIO POLL: 23% of likely voters watched the debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Ryan

Who did better than you expected?

(R) Vance 45% (+10)
(D) Ryan 35

Indies
(R) Vance 56% (+35)
(D) Ryan 21%

Overall Result: Vance +2 (Suffolk Overstated Dem support by 9.5% in 2016 and 2018 pic.twitter.com/Pa2tEPu3I4

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) October 17, 2022

We’ll have to see what the polls say about this one … or better yet, wait for the voting results.

Meanwhile in Georgia, Stacey Abrams also tried to shift her performance in the wake of bad reviews, only even more desperately. Abrams claimed that she had “acknowledged” that Brian Kemp won the 2018 election on November 16th of that year, Townhall’s Spencer Brown reports:

When asked about her prior election denial on Monday evening’s debate stage, Abrams again tried to deny her denial. When asked whether she’d commit to accept the outcome of this November’s election “regardless of what it shows” and whether she stood by her prior use of words like “rigged” to describe the 2018 election, she attempted to rewrite her own recent history.

“In 2018, I began my speech on November 16 acknowledging that Governor Kemp had won the election,” Abrams said. “I then proceeded to lay out, in great detail, the challenges faced by voters under his leadership as secretary of state,” she added, trying to pivot to an attack on her GOP opponent without answering the question of whether she regretted denying the outcome of her last run at the Governor’s office and whether she’d accept the 2022 result.

Nonsense. Abrams’ election denial went on long after that. Abrams spent most of the next two years claiming that she had been robbed, until the 2020 presidential election suddenly made Abrams’ election denial very, very inconvenient. For instance — and this is just one instance — she claimed in April 2019 that the election had been stolen by Kemp:

. @staceyabrams on why she hasn’t conceded 2018: “Concession needs to say something is right and true and proper…You can’t trick me into saying it was right.”

“I’m not saying they stole it from me, but they stole it from the voters of Georgia.”

— David Catanese (@davecatanese) April 3, 2019

That was such a pervasive claim by Abrams at that point that Catanese wondered whether Abrams would force it to be a litmus test for other Democrats:

It’s a fair point.

And it calls into question whether any Democrat — running for president or otherwise — would dare disavow her claim. https://t.co/yY9Up6kxui

— David Catanese (@davecatanese) April 3, 2019

They didn’t, not until after November 2020, when Democrats and the media liked to paint Donald Trump as the inventor of insane election denialism.  Spencer includes a number of other Abrams quotes to illustrate the point as well, but make no mistake: the stolen-election narrative was mainstream media’s favored take on the 2018 Georgia elections. Georgia voters won’t have soon forgotten it, either — which is why Kemp’s up in every poll and leads in the RCP aggregate 51/45.5.

Finally, we have Evan McMullin, who was so focused on his attack strategy that he didn’t bother to listen to what Mike Lee actually said in the debate. Lee declared that — unlike some in the GOP — he favored normalization of DACA “dreamers.” McMullin then accused Lee of favoring deportation, which not only bemused Lee but clearly amused the Utah audience, who laughed out loud. Lee scornfully advised McMullin to make the most of his last few seconds on the debate stage:

MCMULLIN: "The idea that he would even leave the door open to any deportation of them, I think, is cruel and I oppose it. Do you want to send them home? This is their home."

LEE: "You've got 36 seconds left. I suggest you use it." pic.twitter.com/SAiWitoJEJ

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 18, 2022

That’s an own-goal in any league, one would presume.

Did we learn anything from Debate Night in America? Sure … stay ready for some football. The game’s more interesting, the refs are less crooked, and the players more adept at the game. Otherwise … just stay in shape for Election Day.