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The RNC accidentally put up its “Mike Pence won the debate” post early

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty
Andrew Prokop is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He’s worked at Vox since the site’s launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker’s Washington, DC, bureau.

The vice presidential debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence hasn’t even started yet, but the Republican National Committee already knows who won — it’s accidentally put up a prewritten post spinning a Pence victory early on GOP.com.

“The consensus was clear after the dust settled, Mike Pence was the clear winner of the debate,” the post says. Here it is, in case it gets taken down (update: it’s down):

GOP.com

We should be charitable in assuming this is placeholder text, though it’s quite poorly written even for that. But we can see here that whoever wrote this anticipates Pence’s best moments will include “Economy” and “Highlighting Hillary’s scandals.”

The author also boldly goes out on a limb by declaring that “the other clear winner from tonight’s debate was Donald Trump.” Indeed, one of the main reasons Pence won this nonexistent debate was because he “perfectly shared Trump’s vision to make America great again.” Sounds like it was quite a contest.


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