Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz will meet Tuesday in the lone vice presidential debate of the 2024 election, bringing together undercards who have spent two months going after each other and the opposing nominees who top the major-party tickets.
The matchup, hosted by CBS News in New York, might not carry the same stakes as the Sept. 10 debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. But it offers their top lieutenants a fresh opportunity to introduce themselves, vouch for their bosses and fulfill a time-honored role of a running mate: attack dog. It will involve the biggest television and online audience either No. 2 will see before Election Day.
Walz, the 60-year-old Minnesota Governor, and Vance, a 40-year-old U.S. Senator from Ohio, have previewed potential approaches for weeks. Walz, before Harris selected him, was the Democrat who coined “weird” as a go-to pejorative for the Republican ticket. Vance assails the Governor’s progressive record as proof Democrats are too far left for voters.
Vance has mocked his fellow veteran’s military service record. Walz hammers Vance’s opposition to abortion rights and his views on family life. Both men have played up their small-town, middle-America credentials — contrasts to Trump, the billionaire native New Yorker, and Harris, the California Bay Area native.
It sets up a potentially fierce night in Manhattan. Here are the dynamics to consider as the rivals meet face-to-face for the first time:
Is it more Walz vs. Vance or Harris vs. Trump?
Running mates have a balancing act. Their primary job is to make the case for their bosses. But a vice presidential nominee’s credibility and connection with the audience are important factors in reaching that goal. If a voter doesn’t like the messenger, they’re less likely to buy the message.
Going into the debate, a new AP-NORC poll suggests Walz is better liked than Vance, giving the Republican perhaps a steeper challenge.
The poll found that only a quarter of registered voters have a somewhat or very favorable view of the Ohio Senator, while about half have a somewhat or very unfavorable view. About a quarter don’t know enough to say. Walz is viewed positively by about 4 in 10 voters and negatively by about 3 in 10; the rest don’t know enough to say.
Still, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat and the 2016 vice presidential nominee, warned participants against thinking too much about themselves.
“The only advice that matters is to protect the top of the ticket,” Kaine insisted, recalling the 2000 matchup between Republican Dick Cheney and Democrat Joe Lieberman. “Cheney kept attacking (Al) Gore, and Lieberman, instead of defending Gore, tried to make himself likable. … You can’t leave attacks unanswered.”
Abortion rights and views on family will feature prominently
Democrats believe abortion rights and reproductive health care will motivate their core voters and sway swing voters.
Walz has tried to capitalize already by mixing his story into the argument. The Governor talks often about how he and his wife, Gwen, required fertility treatments to have their daughter. Democrats have excoriated Vance for his 2021 quip about “childless cat ladies” shaping American life. And Walz has been eager to echo Harris’ emphasis on abortion rights as an anchor of her overall campaign theme: “Freedom.”
Vance and Trump, on the other hand, have struggled for a consistent message on abortion rights — a reflection of how politically fraught the issue is for Republicans since support for abortion access has increased since the 2022 Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Trump brags about appointing conservatives who helped strike down Roe and return abortion regulation to state governments. Many Republicans now want to go beyond state bans and place federal restrictions on the procedure, but Trump has indicated that overturning Roe is enough. He has also waffled on how he’ll vote on a Florida referendum that would expand abortion rights.
Vance said in August that Trump would veto a national ban if it cleared Congress. A couple of weeks later, during Trump’s debate with Harris, the former President demurred on an answer, saying, “I didn’t discuss it with JD.” The Harris campaign has amplified audio of Vance saying as a Senate candidate that he would like to see abortion outlawed nationwide.
Vance and Walz are competing for an advantage on the economy
Vance often offers clearer arguments than Trump about boosting American manufacturing, helping workers and punishing corporations. He regularly attacks the Biden-Harris administration over inflation. If there’s a broad topic where Vance wants to put Walz on the defensive and tether the Democratic ticket to President Joe Biden, it’s the economy.
For her part, Harris declares that “building the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.” She acknowledges many consumers’ struggles even as she generally defends Biden’s overall record of economic growth, low unemployment and rising wages since inheriting a COVID freefall.
Both campaigns have competing suites of economic proposals, including varying tax cuts and subsidies for certain sectors. Expect the running mates to spend considerable time trying to convince the dwindling slice of persuadable voters that their ticket is more in tune with most U.S. households’ day-to-day economic concerns.
The two are expected to talk up their middle-America roots
As much as the debate is about Harris and Trump, the running mates got here in no small part because of their respective biographies.
Trump’s choice was a play to further cement the GOP ticket as the choice for middle America. The author of the “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir who grew up in small-town Ohio, Vance has roots to match his economic populism in ways the billionaire Trump does not.
Walz and Harris both grew up middle class, but Walz remains firmly ensconced there, going from his boyhood on a Nebraska farm to the high school classrooms of Minnesota before he ran for office. It’s both a juxtaposition with and reinforcement of Harris’ story as the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father.
Both men have made their families part of their political identities. Each have working spouses. Walz has two children — young adult and teenage. Vance has three young children. The Walzes and Vances are more traditional political families than those of the presidential nominees: Harris has adult stepchildren from her decade-old marriage to Doug Emhoff; Trump has five children from three marriages.
Expect both running mates, even as they try to keep the spotlight on their bosses, to highlight their own stories.
The fact-checking onus will be on the candidates
CBS announced Friday that it will be up to the candidates to keep each other honest at Tuesday’s debate — a sticking point from earlier debates this year.
In the June debate between Trump and Biden, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash limited follow-up questions and did not fact check either participant. In the September debate between Trump and Harris, ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis interjected with matter-of-fact corrections to some of Trump’s most glaring misstatements.
10 comments
The Sage "E"
October 1, 2024 at 7:09 pm
America, you should prepare yourselves for the CBS Moderators to cheat big time for the Chink Lover Walz.
Thank you America,
The Sage “E”
PeterH
October 1, 2024 at 7:45 pm
The problem for Republicans is “the top of the ticket!”
Every state in the USA endorsed a Republican racist, white nationalist, lying birther fraud who staged an attempted coup on January 6th that caused the death of several police officers. Trump has been impeached twice and indicted in four criminal cases. Speaking of criminality Trump is also a convicted felon. Americans will never install such a horrible human being in the Oval Office. Trump is a horrible role model for America’s youth.
That said:
Republicans are America’s worst enemy!
Vote all Republicans out of office.
Bobblehead Kammy
October 1, 2024 at 8:37 pm
One person was killed on that day. An unarmed USAF VETERAN shout in cold blood by a Capital Police Officer. Reverse the rolls and we would have a hate crime on our hands. I guess that is a one way law only. There was no coup attempt that day. These people were armed with cell phones, backpacks, and American Flags. They definitely got carried away but to subscribe that the strongest military in the world could get overthrown by these clowns is ludicrous.
The Sage "E"
October 1, 2024 at 8:54 pm
Good evening America,
Relax your Political Sphincters as I, The Sage “E”, had a little talk with Peter H, and as it turns out Peter H is actually a Sage Patriot Trump Voter.
THE BACK-STORY:
Peter H lost his job and his apartment due to “The Raveges on The Economey” by the “IDIOT HARRIS ADMINISTRATION’S BUNGELING OF EVERYTHING IT TOUCHED”.
This job of writing “Fake Leftist Screed” is the only job our poor disenfranchised Peter H could find … again due to “Harris-Nomics”.
In order for the Sage Patriot, Peter H, to keep his job and not have to move back into the Homeless Shelter….lets all just “PRETEND…WINK WINK” that Peter H is “Just Another Mindless Dook 4 Brains Leftist Harris Supporter.”
We “GOT YOU PETER H”, and we Thank You for voting Trump,
The Sage “E” [FKA ELVIS – FKA EARL]
yew oweme
October 2, 2024 at 7:28 pm
EARL, how does it feel to support a literal orange turd? supporting slim balls like desantis and trump makes you look pretty weak and stupid i know, i know, earl, you love slim balls so get over it, right.. now get back to your sphincter freaking.
Bobblehead Kammy
October 1, 2024 at 9:13 pm
Vance off to a great start. Weirdo Walz looking nervous. Vance is an excellent and sharp debater. Walz gonna break out his Poms Poms.
Bobblehead Kammy
October 1, 2024 at 9:21 pm
So the question on immigration is how we send the illegals back? Really? Great job by Vance focusing instead on how we got here in the first place.
Bobblehead Kammy
October 1, 2024 at 9:41 pm
So Governor were you in Tiananmen Sq or not? Oh so you did lie? No wonder Kammy likes you. Two peas in a pod.🤣
PeterH
October 1, 2024 at 11:16 pm
1. Immigrants have absolutely nothing to do with hustling drugs into the USA.
2. Trump and Republicans had absolutely nothing to do with rescuing saving Obamacare.
3. Trump inherited the longest period of economic expansion in American history from Obama…… and destroyed that growth.
4. Three months before the onset of COVID, the USA manufacturing slipped into recession.
5. Vance and Trump have a long long history of supporting a national abortion ban.
Noble Causes
October 2, 2024 at 5:09 am
I watched the debate. Vance was tripped up in distorted untruths and damning non-answers. All for illogical fealty to Trump’s incompetence while not liking the guy? How the golden lad has fallen.