A football coach and a “Yale lawyer” will face off Tuesday night in New York City. Two Midwesterners with very different styles and vastly different messages clash over the future of America.
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will face Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio in a vice presidential debate that is expected to have unusual significance in a heated election year. They will joust for 90 minutes, hosted by CBS News, in an attempt to give their respective vice presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, an advantage in the White House.
Walz is preparing for a debate in Minneapolis with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, posing as Vance. (Buttigieg may have been suffering from deja vu: During Kamala Harris’ warm-up session ahead of the 2020 vice presidential debate, he pretended to be Mike Pence.)
Mr. Vance is holding a mock debate with Tom Emmer, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives who is filling in for Mr. Walz. Emmer is a fellow Minnesotan, so he has the advantage of studying the waltz up close.
The two running mates bring contrasting strengths to the gladiator ring. Vance is an experienced debater and will enjoy confrontations under the glare of television lights.
“Look, he’s a Yale law scholar,” Walz said of his opponent. “He will come well prepared.”
In contrast, Walz can rely on skills learned in the school classroom. Walz worked as a public school teacher for 17 years, so she knows how to think on her feet and deal with disruptive children.
“I expect to see a very heated debate,” Robbie Mook, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, told CBS News.
One of the big questions of the night will be whether Mr. Vance can recover from a rocky start to his candidacy. Can he transcend all the “weirdness” that Waltz has assembled and bring coherence to the Trump campaign’s often confusing message?
From an awkward encounter with a donut shop employee to an ongoing controversy over his “childless cat lady” remark, Vance has been the subject of online ridicule that has occasionally seemed to involve him. He also seems to be fixated on the same culture war issues that are draining Trump.
“Vance doesn’t seem to have drawn more voters to Trump because the controversies he gets into are exactly the same as the ones involving the former president,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. said.
Most egregiously, Vance doubled down on false and racist claims that Haitian immigrants were eating family pets in Springfield, Ohio, despite local officials’ adamant denials. That’s true. He recently confessed to CNN that he would “make up a story” to get media attention.
Comments like this swamped Vance in voter opinion. According to FiveThirtyEight, his unfavorable rating is 11 points higher than his favorable rating.
Mr. Walz, by contrast, is basking in the glow of a positive four-point difference in favorability ratings, presenting him with an entirely different set of challenges on debate night. He fended off Vance’s attempts to paint him as a misinformation candidate based on false statements about Walz’s war record, softened his rival’s claims that he was dangerously liberal, and pushed him off track. You need to refuse to do so.
“Waltz just needs to get in and out of the debate without getting in trouble for tickets,” Baden said.
John Conway, director of Republican voter strategy against Trump, said the best advice for Walz is to follow Harris’ strategy. He organized a focus group the day after the Harris-Trump debate, inviting voters in five battleground states who supported Trump in 2016 but switched to Biden in 2020.
Focus group attendees were enthused by Harris’ dual approach to the debate, attacking President Trump’s lies and felony convictions while also offering a positive plan for the country’s future. “That’s the blueprint that Walz has to follow: attack when necessary, but be substantive about the issues,” Conway said.
There have been some memorable made-for-television moments since the first vice presidential debate between Sens. Bob Dole and Walter Mondale in 1976. The most famous was the 1988 incident in which Democrat Lloyd Bentsen accused George H. Bush’s vice presidential candidate, Dan Quayle, of comparing him to John F. Kennedy.
“Senator, I served under Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are not Jack Kennedy.”
“That was very unfortunate, Senator,” Quayle exclaimed.
More recently, in 2008, Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate, told Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, who is running with Barack Obama, “Oh, that’s not true.” Give it to me, Joe,” he cursed.
Those were great sound bites in the dictionary. But it’s worth noting that neither Bensen nor Palin were rewarded at the critical moment: at the ballot box.
In fact, vice presidential debates tend to be less overwhelming in terms of their lasting impact on U.S. elections. Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, said that even after the dynamic presidential debate between Harris and Trump earlier this month that was watched by 67 million television viewers and widely acclaimed as a victory for Harris. He pointed out that the election campaign is still ongoing. They are virtually even in key battleground states.
Sabato said he expected Tuesday’s vice presidential race to be similarly inconclusive, given the inconclusive results in the top debates. “I don’t expect the vice presidential debate to have any impact,” he said.
But this is no ordinary election. The stakes are heightened by Joe Biden’s resignation, Harris’ sudden elevation, and Trump’s refusal to participate in a second debate with her.
Tuesday’s spectacle will likely be the last debate before Election Day on Nov. 5. “I think this is important because it’s really the last major national moment in the campaign,” Mook said.
Apart from the economy, immigration, and foreign wars that are certain to be taken up in the debate, there is a strong possibility that more amorphous struggles will unfold on the stage. Who will hold the mantle of “true Midwesterner”? Waltz, born in Nebraska, or Vance, from Ohio, best-selling author of Hillbilly Elegy.
This conflict goes beyond mere aesthetics or regional loyalty. This voice has resonated strongly in the so-called “Blue Wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, where the outcome of the election could be determined.
“I don’t know if the word ‘Midwest’ will be used in the discussion, but the feeling about the Midwest will be conveyed,” Baden said.
Candidates offer diametrically opposed visions for the core region. Walz’s Midwest neighborhood is down-to-earth and homely, where neighbors look out for each other, the football coach doubles as a local hero (Waltz has coached football at Mankato West High School since 1997), and the atmosphere is full of joy.
Vance’s work depicts darker images of drug addiction, broken families, and the threat of immigration. His is the Midwest of President Trump’s “American carnage” dystopia.
Two completely contrasting visions. Two tough and determined candidates. Gentlemen, shall we begin?
