September 26 :
One of the candidates for vice president is a best-selling novelist who, among other things, popularized the insult "childless cat ladies" to describe Democrats and jumped on a false narrative about immigrants consuming pets. The second one is a folky ex-high school football coach who has been questioned about his military service and who has dubbed his Republican opponents "weird," a description that instantly stuck.
In spite of their professed understanding of heartland Americans' desires, these two white men from the United States' Midwest couldn't be more ideologically opposed. Next week, in a vice presidential debate, Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz will square off, with each party's nominees vying to portray themselves in the best light possible while simultaneously bolstering the case for their respective presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
For the most part, voters pay little attention to the vice presidential debate because it is considered the undercard. With all the focus on Walz and Vance's attacks, people may be eager to witness their only debate before the election on November 5th, which is slated for October 1st.
As early voting begins in several states, the vice presidents will face off, providing both men with a final chance to make compelling cases for their campaigns in the absence of any planned presidential debates. University of Michigan presidential debate specialist Aaron Kall stated, "Ultimately their most important job is to be an effective surrogate and proxy for their respective campaigns."
Most people thought Harris beat Trump in their debate on September 10. That might make Vance's (40), a fiery first-term senator from Ohio who Trump picked to appease his conservative base, even more of a motivator to succeed. Harris picked Walz, 60, a longtime congressman and governor of Minnesota, to help her win over independents in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Walz has called Vance a "weird," out-of-touch scientist with an Ivy League degree.
Vance, who wrote the best-selling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," will most certainly have to defend his position on abortion, which includes his prior support for a nationwide ban, and his readiness to embellish a made-up tale about Haitian immigrants devouring Springfield, Ohio, residents' pets.
After the 2020 Minneapolis riots, which occurred following the police shooting death of George Floyd, Walz will certainly face questions about his handling of the situation as governor. An individual familiar with the Republican's debate strategy revealed that one of Vance's objectives is to cast Walz as a moderate-sounding leftist zealot. Walz, who identified as a supporter of "progressive values," expanded paid leave and created free school lunches while governor.
The source also mentioned that Vance is expected to scrutinize Walz's record in the service. Vance, a former Marine Corps public relations officer who spent six months serving in Iraq, has accused Walz of quitting the Army National Guard to evade deployment to Iraq and of making up claims that he was a combat veteran.
Following his 2005 congressional campaign, Walz—who had served for 24 years in the Guard—retired and has since denied accusations that he abandoned his fellow service members. In a 2018 video, Harris made an inaccurate reference to "weapons of war that I carried into war," and his campaign has now admitted as much. While serving, Walz was never in a combat zone.
"It's absolutely fair to ask Walz about how he painted his military background because he has been very careful on how he has answered this," said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist in Washington. "He has been very careful." Yet, according to Bonjean, Vance ought to maintain his emphasis on how "another Trump presidency can help voters with solutions to their kitchen table issues in order to attract independent voters in toss-up states."
Former Clinton aide Paul Begala called it a "rookie mistake" for Vance to attack Walz, saying that people vote for the presidential candidate, not their running mate. What Begala meant was that "it won't make a difference" if Vance destroyed Walz or not. A person close to the situation said that Vance has chosen a more conventional approach to debate preparation, in contrast to Trump's method, which mostly included unstructured policy conversations among aides.
According to the source, he chose Tom Emmer, a U.S. representative from Minnesota, to assume Walz's role in practice debates.The source also mentioned that Vance's wife, Usha Vance, and top Trump advisor Jason Miller have been present in separate sessions where Vance has been inundated with questions.
The insider, who requested anonymity in order to discuss strategy, also revealed that Walz has been collaborating with a stand-in, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is a small-town Midwesterner similar to Vance. An other source indicated that Rob Friedlander and Zayn Siddique, who were both members of the Biden administration's White House staff, were also helpful in Walz's preparation. In preparation for Harris's debate with Trump, Siddique provided assistance.
Since surveys reveal that the public views Vance less favorably than Walz, he may need to put forth some effort to connect with them, especially when he enjoys delving into the nitty-gritty of policy. Vance has 34% positive and 42% negative views among Americans, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. Though 33% of Americans held a negative impression of Walz, 39% held a positive one.
Republicans' Matt Gorman, who was an operative for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, drew parallels between this year's debate and the 2012 vice presidential debate, in which Joe Biden, known as the better communicator, faced off against Republican Paul Ryan, a budget-minded wonk. "Ryan was right and pushed back effectively," Gorman said, adding that Biden had just "out-Irished" Ryan. "If Walz claims victory, it's due to his penchant for such tactics."
