Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, left, and Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, shake hands as they arrive for a CBS News vice presidential debate, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in New York.
| Photo Credit: AP
Tim Walz and J.D. Vance are meeting for their first and possibly only vice presidential debate on Tuesday (October 1, 2024), in what could be the last debate for both campaigns to argue their case before the election.
The debate in New York hosted by CBS News gives Mr. Vance, a Republican freshman senator from Ohio, and Mr. Walz, a two-term Democratic governor of Minnesota, a chance to introduce themselves, make a case for their running mates, and go on the attack against the opposing ticket.
Tuesday’s matchup could have an outsized impact. Polls have shown Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump locked in a close contest, giving added weight to anything that can sway voters on the margins, including the impression left by the vice presidential candidates. It also might be the last debate of the campaign, with Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump teams failing to agree on another meeting.
The role of a presidential running mate is typically to serve as an attack dog for the person at the top of the ticket, arguing against the opposing presidential candidate and their proxy on stage. Both Mr. Vance and Mr. Walz have embraced that role.
Mr. Vance’s occasionally confrontational news interviews and appearances on the campaign trail have underscored why Mr. Trump picked him for the Republican ticket despite his past biting criticisms of the former President, including once suggesting Mr. Trump would be “America’s Hitler.”
Mr. Walz, meanwhile, catapulted onto Ms. Harris’ campaign by branding Mr. Trump and Republicans as “ just weird,” creating an attack line for Democrats seeking to argue Republicans are disconnected from the American people.
A new AP-NORC poll found that Mr. Walz is better liked than Mr. Vance, potentially giving the Republican an added challenge.
After a Harris-Trump debate in which Republicans complained about the ABC News moderators fact-checking Mr. Trump, Tuesday’s debate will not feature any corrections from the hosts. CBS News said the onus for pointing out misstatements will be on the candidates, with moderators “facilitating those opportunities.”
Mr. Trump, on Tuesday evening, said his advice to Mr. Vance was to “have a lot of fun” and praised his running mate as a “smart guy” and “a real warrior.”
As they’ve campaigned, both Mr. Walz and Mr. Vance have played up their roots in small towns in middle America, broadening the appeal of Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, who hail from California and New York, respectively.
Mr. Walz, 60, frequently invokes his past job coaching a high school football team as he speaks about his campaign with Harris bringing “joy” back to politics and weds his critiques of the GOP to a message to Democrats that they need to “leave it all on the field.”
Mr. Walz, a Nebraska native, was a geography teacher before he was elected to Congress in 2006. He spent a dozen years there before he was elected governor in 2018, winning a second term four years later.
He also served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring in 2005. His exit and description of his service have drawn harsh criticism from Mr. Vance, who served in the Marine Corps, including in Iraq.
The 40-year-old Mr. Vance became nationally known in 2016 with the publication of his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which recounts his childhood in Ohio and his family’s roots in rural Kentucky. The book was cited frequently after Mr. Trump’s 2016 win as a window into working-class white voters who supported his campaign. Mr. Vance went to Yale Law School before working as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.
After the publication of his book, he was a prominent critic of Mr. Trump’s before he morphed into a staunch defender of the former President, especially on issues like trade, foreign policy and immigration.
Published – October 02, 2024 06:49 am IST
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