Of all the things I expected to see during Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — slickness, over-talking and sharply targeted folksiness — I had not planned on civility.

Who can blame me?

The American political process has long descended into hostility, heated arguments and explosive anger. From then-presidential candidate Donald Trump stalking Hillary Clinton around the stage, to Joe Biden’s fed-up “Will you shut up, man?” to Trump’s bizarre “eating the dogs” moment in the most recent presidential debate, we’re long past believing those stilted handshakes at the beginning are actually friendly.

It’s true that the niceness between Walz and Vance, who have been engaging in a war of words for weeks, masked an undercurrent of disagreement — mostly about who was telling the truth. But it was clear that everybody’s debate prep had advised them to avoid the bristling nastiness that flowed through the meeting between their prospective bosses, Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump. That one was rough.

Tuesday’s measured graciousness was almost as startling as the sharpness we’ve come to expect, making it all the more striking when the masks fell.

If I had to pick a winner from last night, it would be Vance on style and Walz on substance. The Republican’s smile seemed more natural and he mostly avoided the stilted laugh and other weirdness that Walz pointedly highlighted early in the campaign. Meanwhile, the governor’s famous Midwestern dad warmth was undercut with obvious nerves. I winced when he misspoke that he’d “become friends with school shooters,” because … no.

But in the end, Vance’s obvious polish couldn’t put a shine on his inability to truly explain what he had gotten wrong about the running mate he once compared to Hitler, or to say plainly that Trump had lost the 2020 election. If you can’t do that, there’s nothing much to say.

Leading up to that moment toward the end of the debate when he deflected on the election’s outcome, Vance’s improvements were visible. Those who tuned in to see the Republican sputter mechanically like he has in various interviews might have been surprised to see him emit sympathy to Walz when the governor spoke of his teenage son witnessing a shooting. It was almost startling how normal Vance seemed compared to past performances.

Still, that couldn’t hide all the times that the senator avoided easy answers, papered over controversial ones hoping no one would notice and sometimes just lied. He kept blaming the community of legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, for a local housing crisis and for what he said were rising fentanyl deaths — which Walz continually disputed.

Also, Vance’s story about a dear friend in an abusive relationship who had an abortion came down to talking points about gaining back voter trust, which doesn’t have anything to do with reasons women want power over their reproductive care. And he continued Trump’s strategy of blaming Harris, the current vice president, for every ill and policy of Joe Biden’s presidency, knowing full well that the vice presidency doesn’t work that way.

Walz’s best moments were when his nerves fell away, and he scored factual and emotional points on correcting his opponent. The highlight was his passionate litany of pregnant women whose tragic outcomes “were determined by geography” because their states restricted abortion. He also, to my mind, adequately explained the recent revelations that he didn’t arrive in China until after 1989′s Tiananmen Square protests. He said he misspoke and moved on, giving that subject all the weight it deserved (which was very little).

I also want to give a special shout-out to perhaps the real winners: CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, who had agreed not to do live fact-checking but did anyway. A visibly annoyed Vance pointed that out to Brennan, resulting in a back-and-forth that ended with both men’s mics muted. It was a masterful moment of “Don’t start none, won’t be none” on the network’s part, and I liked it. I wonder if CBS buckled under the pressure from others in the media (including me) who clowned them for their previous plans to let the men fact-check each other. If so, good.

Again, it’s so hard to say who came out on top among the candidates when the standard of measuring wins and losses was about expectation. Vance did better than many thought he might, and Walz was initially shakier than I’ve seen him. But in the end, I think the truth shall set you free and set you apart, so Walz was the winner.

Then again, just as in the presidential debate, the ultimate victor is probably whoever you thought it would be before it even started.