What to watch as JD Vance and Tim Walz meet for vice presidential debate

ATLANTA (AP) — Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz will meet Tuesday in the only vice presidential debate of the 2024 election, bringing together the undercards who spent two months battling each other and the opposing candidates who top the tickets of the major parties.

The showdown, hosted by CBS News in New York, may 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 new opportunity to introduce themselves, vouch for their bosses and fill the traditional role of running mate: attack dog. This will involve the largest TV and online audience Number 2 will see before Election Day.

Walz, the 60-year-old governor of Minnesota, and Vance, a 40-year-old U.S. senator from Ohio, have been considering potential approaches for weeks. Walz, before Harris chose him, was the Democrat who called “weird” an essential pejorative for the Republican ticket. Vance attacks the governor’s progressive record as proof that Democrats are too far left for voters.

Vance mocked his fellow veteran’s military service record. Walz hammers home Vance’s opposition to abortion rights and his views on family life. Both men played up their small-town Middle American credentials — unlike Trump, the New York-born billionaire, and Harris, a California Bay Area native.

This makes for a potentially fierce night in Manhattan. Here are the dynamics to consider as the rivals meet face to face for the first time:

The running mates have a balancing act. Their main task is to defend the interests of their bosses. But a vice presidential candidate’s credibility and connection to the public are important factors in achieving that goal. If a voter doesn’t like the messenger, they are less likely to buy the message.

As the debate begins, a new AP-NORC poll suggests Walz is more well-liked than Vance, perhaps posing a greater challenge to the Republican.

The poll found that only a quarter of registered voters have a somewhat or very favorable opinion of the Ohio senator, while about half have a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion. 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 voters; the others don’t know enough to say it.

Still, Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat and 2016 vice presidential candidate, cautioned attendees 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 continued to attack (Al) Gore, and Lieberman, instead of defending Gore, tried to make himself sympathetic. … We cannot let the attacks go unanswered.”

Democrats believe the right to abortion and reproductive health care will motivate their core voters and influence swing voters.

Walz has already tried to capitalize by mixing his story with the argument. The governor often talks about how he and his wife, Gwen, needed fertility treatments to have their daughter. Democrats criticized Vance for his 2021 quip about “childless cat ladies” shaping American life. And Walz made a point of echoing Harris’ emphasis on abortion rights as the anchor of her overall campaign theme: “Freedom.”

Vance and Trump, on the other hand, have struggled for a consistent message on abortion rights — reflecting how politically difficult the issue is for Republicans since support for abortion access has increased since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Trump brags about appointing conservatives who helped bring down Roe and return abortion regulation to state governments. Many Republicans now want to go beyond state bans and impose federal restrictions on the procedure, but Trump has indicated that it is enough to overturn Roe. He also questioned how he would vote in a Florida referendum that would expand abortion rights.

Vance said in August that Trump would veto a nationwide ban if Congress authorized it. A few weeks later, during the debate between Trump and Harris, the former president hesitated to respond, saying, “I haven’t discussed it with JD.” » The Harris campaign amplified audio of Vance saying, as a Senate candidate, that he would like to see abortion banned nationwide.

Vance often offers clearer arguments than Trump for boosting U.S. manufacturing, helping workers and punishing businesses. He regularly attacks the Biden-Harris administration over inflation. If there’s one broad issue Vance wants to put Walz on the defensive and attach the Democratic ticket to President Joe Biden, it’s the economy.