The football coach and the “Yale Law Guy” face off Tuesday night in New York City, as two Midwesterners with very different styles and very different messages weigh in on the future of the U.S.
Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, faces Republican Ohio Senator JD Vance in a vice-presidential debate that promises to be unusually important in this red-hot election year. They will battle for 90 minutes, monitored by CBS News, as they try to give their respective running mates – Kamala Harris and Donald Trump – an edge for the White House.
Walz has been preparing for the debate in Minneapolis with US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, disguised as Vance. (Buttigieg may have had deja vu: He impersonated Mike Pence during Kamala Harris’ prep sessions ahead of the 2020 VP debate.)
Related: Why Trump and Vance’s strategy is ‘say anything, make up anything’
Vance has held mock debates with Republican whip in the U.S. House, Tom Emmer, who portrayed Walz. Emmer is a fellow Minnesotan, so he has the advantage of having studied Walz up close.
The two running mates bring contrasting strengths to the gladiator ring. Vance is an experienced debater who loves confrontation under the glow of the TV lights.
“Look, he’s a Yale lawyer,” Walz has said of his opponent. “He will come well prepared.”
Walz, on the other hand, will be able to lean on skills learned in the classroom at school. Walz worked as a public school teacher for 17 years, so he knows how to think things through—and how to deal with a disruptive child.
“I expect to see a very heated debate,” Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, told CBS News.
One of the big questions of the evening will likely be whether Vance can redeem himself after a rocky start to his candidacy. Will he be able to push past all the “weirdness,” as Walz has put it, and bring consistency to the message of an often chaotic Trump campaign?
From awkward encounters with donut shop employees to the ongoing furor surrounding his comment about “childless cat ladies,” Vance has been the subject of online ridicule that at times seemed to engulf him. He also seems stuck on the same culture war issues that consume Trump.
“Vance does not appear to have attracted any additional voters to the Trump ticket, as the controversies he finds himself in are exactly the same as those the former president faces,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison .
Most egregiously, Vance has doubled down on the false and racist narrative that Haitian immigrants eat pets in Springfield, Ohio, despite categorical denials from local authorities. He recently admitted to CNN that he was willing to “create stories” if it meant attracting media attention.
Such comments have sunk Vance in the opinion of the voting public — his unfavorable rating is 11 points higher than his favorable rating, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Walz, on the other hand, is basking in the glow of a positive four-point gap between his favorable ratings, which presents him with a completely different set of challenges on debate night. He will have to counter Vance’s attempts to portray him as the disinformation candidate based on misrepresentations Walz has made about his military record, defuse his rivals’ claims that he is dangerously liberal and refuse to to be led off track.
“Walz just needs to get in and out of the debate without causing problems for his ticket,” Burden said.
John Conway, strategy director for Republican Voters Against Trump, said Walz would be best off following Harris’ playbook. The day after Harris’ debate with Trump, he hosted focus groups involving voters from five battleground states who supported Trump in 2016 but switched to Biden in 2020.
Focus group participants were enthusiastic about Harris’ dual approach to the debate: attacking Trump for his lies and felony convictions, but also laying out a positive plan for the country’s future. “That’s the blueprint for Walz to follow,” Conway said, “to attack when necessary, but also to be substantive on the issues.”
Since the first one in 1976 between Senators Bob Dole and Walter Mondale, there have been several memorable TV moments during the VP debates. Most celebrated is the 1988 incident when Democrat Lloyd Bentsen reprimanded George H. Bush’s running mate, Dan Quayle, for comparing himself to John F. Kennedy.
“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are not Jack Kennedy.”
“That really wasn’t necessary, Senator,” Quayle lamented.
More recently, John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, has criticized Joe Biden, the Democratic VP candidate who ran with Barack Obama in 2008, telling him, “Aw, tell me it ain’t so, Joe.”
Those were nice soundbites that ended up in the lexicons. But it’s notable that neither Bentsen nor Palin were rewarded where it matters: at the ballot box.
In fact, the vice presidential debates have generally been disappointing in terms of the lasting impression they have left on the American election. Larry Sabato, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, pointed out that even after the dynamic presidential debate between Harris and Trump earlier this month, which was watched by 67 million TV viewers and in which Harris was widely expected to have won, the race was still continues. essentially neck-and-neck in the critical theaters of battle.
Sabato said that given the lack of fallout from the debate at the top of the list, he expected Tuesday’s vice presidential battle to be similarly inconclusive. “I don’t expect the vice presidential debate to have any impact,” he said.
Yet these are no ordinary elections. Joe Biden’s departure and Harris’ sudden rise, along with Trump’s refusal to participate in a second debate with her, have raised the stakes.
Tuesday’s spectacle will likely be the final debate before election day on November 5. “This is really the last big national moment in the campaign, so I think it’s important,” Mook said.
Beyond the economy, immigration and foreign wars, which will surely come up during the debate, a more amorphous battle will likely play out on stage: Who will own the mantle of “authentic Midwesterner”? Will it be Nebraska-born Walz, or bestselling author of Hillbilly Elegy, Ohio’s Vance.
The rivalry goes beyond mere aesthetics or regional loyalty. It has major resonance in the states where the election could be decided – the three so-called “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“I don’t know if the word ‘Midwest’ will be used in the debate, but sentiments about the Midwest will be evident,” Burden said.
The candidates offer a diametrically opposed view of the core countries. Walz’s Midwest is cozy and homey, a world where neighbors look out for each other, where football coaches serve as local heroes (Walz coached the sport at Mankato West high school starting in 1997) and where joy fills the air.
Vance paints a much bleaker picture of drug addiction, broken families and the threat of immigration. He finds himself in the Midwest of Trump’s “American carnage” dystopia.
Two completely contrasting views. Two tough and determined candidates. Gentlemen, shall we begin?
