I joined the Democrats at a vice presidential debate watching party. The mood in the room was telling

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AAs the vice presidential debate continued and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz got back on his feet and took increasingly harsh digs at Republican Sen. JD Vance, a Democratic rally outside Washington, D.C., went from silence to solemnity.

Democrats and supporters of Kamala Harris, many of them military veterans, had descended on Micaela Pond's home in Arlington, Virginia, to watch what is likely to be the last face-to-face between the two presidential campaigns before voters head to the polls.

Before the debate began, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland appeared as people chatted over chili, guacamole and various desserts.

Attendees picked up bingo cards with phrases like “mind your own business” and “childless cat ladies” and waited to see what election slogans would come up that night.

But as the debate got underway, the crowd largely fell silent – especially when Walz got off to a rocky start and then had to admit that he wasn't in China during the Tiananmen Square massacre.

“I’m a moron sometimes,” he admitted painfully.

Throughout, Vance seemed to stick to his talking points, particularly when it came to illegal immigration.

Some attendees at the watch party said Walz was likely caught off guard by his opponent's lies.

“He probably couldn’t believe the amount of lying that JD Vance was doing,” Alexandria Stracco said The Independent.

“This is a man who is literally selling revisionist history. And I think that when Tim Walz sees this in person, he's like, 'This is real. This man is really stupid.'”

However, the tense mood in the room began to change after the first commercial break when the discussion turned to abortion.

When Vance announced, “My party, we need to do a much better job of regaining the trust of the American people on this issue when, quite frankly, they just don't trust us,” some attendees — particularly women — were quick to say, “He's lying.”

Later that night, as Vance and Walz talked about school shootings and Vance suggested better doors in schools as a solution, the crowd grew louder and booed. However, when Walz spoke about how “sometimes it’s just because of the weapons,” applause broke out.

“You don't have to be a military veteran to understand that this is a serious matter, so the fact that they listened to each other was positive,” said Jacob Harrer, a Marine Corps veteran The Independent.

Participants also did not believe Vance's statements about child care and paid family leave.

“He sounds like a Democrat,” a woman shouted into the screen.

But the moment that resonated most with those in attendance came in the final segment, when Vance began to back down when asked about the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and whether he believed the 2020 election was stolen.

At that moment people started screaming, “Oh, shut up.”

When Vance said Trump transferred power to President Joe Biden on Jan. 20, 2021 — without mentioning his role in the violent insurrection a few days earlier — an attendee quickly corrected him: “He ran away.”

Vance short-circuited and talked about censorship by Big Tech and the support of controversial figures Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.

The moment was emotional for many in the room because many police officers defending the Capitol live in the Northern Virginia area — something a gathering of Republicans supporting Harris noted last week.

“It's just an extra chance for him to show integrity and he just didn't take advantage of it,” Harrer said of fellow Marine veteran Vance.

When Walz landed a jab in response to Vance's comments — “I think you have a really clear decision in this election about who is going to honor this democracy and who is going to honor Donald Trump” — the room erupted in applause and cheers.

“It came so straight from his heart,” said Vivian Watts, a Virginia state legislator The Independent.

“Nothing was rehearsed about it.”

It's unclear what impact, if any, the debate will have, as snap polls from CBS News and CNN show the evening ended essentially in a draw.

And there's no denying that the mood wasn't always exactly what watch party attendees were hoping for.

But afterward, the people who reached out had a clear goal for the next month and talked about the work they planned to do, including canvassing and knocking on doors.

Pond — the event's host — said it best when she invoked former first lady Michelle Obama's words at the Democratic National Convention: “Do something.”