() – Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance will face off this Tuesday night in the only vice presidential debate of the 2024 elections, and in what could be the last time the two campaign teams face each other on stage.
The showdown between Walz, the 60-year-old Minnesota governor, and Vance, the 40-year-old Ohio senator, is being hosted by CBS News and will take place in New York, without a live audience.
The debate coincides with big news unfolding at home and abroad, including recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene in the southeastern United States and the Middle East on the brink of a broader conflict over Israel’s escalating campaign against Iranian-backed militant groups in Lebanon.
Vice presidential nominees traditionally play the role of attackers on behalf of their primary candidates, in this case Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump.
But Walz and Vance have already been attacking each other for months. Walz earned the Democratic vice presidential nomination in part because of his characterization of the Republican ticket as “bizarre” in television interviews that served as semi-auditions for the job. Vance, a military veteran, has questioned Walz’s service record.
The debate will be moderated by CBS’s Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan. It begins at 9 pm ET and will be simulcast on .
Here are five things to watch for in the vice presidential debate:
The Midwestern roots that are at the heart of Walz and Vance’s well-cultivated political identities will be on display Tuesday as the two men vying to be within striking distance of the presidency present their biographies to the largest audience of voters they’re likely to see. have had to date.
Walz, a two-term governor and former congressman, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006. But he is expected to lean on the roles he held before entering politics: high school teacher and assistant football coach.
Vance, for his part, is a Navy veteran and the author of a best-selling memoir about his family’s family values in Appalachia and the socioeconomic problems of his hometown. He’s likely to highlight how he’s changed his mind about the former president in recent years, without mentioning too much about his past as a political commentator who was a strident critic of Trump.
Both candidates’ biographical speeches are born from an attempt to show their authenticity, a valuable political commodity, particularly in a race in which undecided voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin could determine the outcome.
Voters’ decisions are overwhelmingly influenced by the major party candidates, and Walz and Vance are likely to spend much of their time attacking Trump and Harris respectively. But they could also spend time emphasizing parts of their own biographies and trying to undermine those of their rivals, all in an effort to establish their credibility with voters.
What are the expectations in the US for the vice presidential debate?
The two candidates are divided on abortion rights, an issue that Democrats consider crucial to motivating women and young people and winning over undecided voters.
Walz has discussed the issue within the broader framework of Harris’ support for “freedom,” in contrast to Trump, who named three of the Supreme Court justices who voted with the majority in 2022 to overturn federal protections of the right to abortion that the Roe v. ruling gave. Wade.
The Democrat has also revealed more vulnerable aspects of his own story, including the fertility struggles he and his wife, Gwen, faced. And Democrats have highlighted Vance’s 2021 comment about “childless women with cats” in an effort to portray him as critical of women’s reproductive decisions.
Vance and Trump, for their part, have had difficulty agreeing on the issue of abortion. But Vance has supported policies that he says would encourage the birth of children.
He has also attempted to portray Walz as extreme on the issue of abortion. Last week, at a campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina, he said Walz, as governor of Minnesota, supported a measure that would allow abortion “up to the moment of birth, even to the point where doctors would not be required to to provide life-saving care to a baby who survived a failed abortion.”
“It’s just sick,” he said.
Walz signed it into law in early 2023. Advocates at the time said it was intended to keep decisions about reproductive care in the hands of women and their doctors, rather than politicians and judges.
Walz emerged from relative national obscurity to become Harris’ running mate in August after one of the fastest selection processes in a generation, largely due to his sweet and spicy comments on television.
His direct insistence that Trump, Vance and their allies were “strange” captivated Democrats desperate for an easy hit against MAGA Republicans and left him one step away from the vice presidency.
Since then, however, Walz has been quite moderate.
His cable news appearances have declined, he didn’t say much during his interview with Harris, and his speeches haven’t produced many headlines. He was on the defensive for some time because of his military record, but has largely faded into the background.
On Tuesday night, that will change. What is not clear is, with what effect?
Walz could play the role Biden once had in a debate against another rising young conservative, when the then-vice president frustrated Mitt Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, in a crucial 2012 debate.
Or is there another reason Walz has been kept in the background for the past six weeks? The answer should be clear in the first minutes of the debate.
If past performance is any indication, Vance will attack Walz for his military record.
Republicans, particularly Vance, have accused the governor of exaggerating his resume and retiring before his unit’s deployment to Iraq, claiming that Walz actively tried to avoid serving in combat. A review of records found that Walz ran for Congress in February 2005, before his unit was notified that it might deploy to Iraq. He retired in May 2005, according to the Minnesota National Guard.
Walz has also acknowledged speaking incorrectly about his experience carrying a “weapon of war.” Still, he never explicitly claimed, according to a KFILE review of his first campaign, to have been in combat.
The story is nuanced enough that Vance doesn’t back down. In August, he said Walz was Harris’ “stolen valor running mate” and called the governor’s past comments “shameful.”
It seems unlikely that Walz would want to litigate this on stage, but Vance could force him to try.
For weeks now, Vance and Trump have been doubling and tripling down false claims that Haitians in Ohio City are kidnapping and eating their neighbors’ pets.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and many others have called the claims outlandish, and no one has provided any evidence to the contrary. Still, Trump and Vance want immigration to be the central issue, and although the migrants are in the country legally, the Republican ticket has sought to use the debunked rumor to generate anger over the Biden administration’s handling of the border.
When Trump mentioned Springfield during last month’s presidential debate, moderators verified it in real time.
Pressed about the claims by ‘s Dana Bash in September, Vance said, “If I have to create stories to get the American media to pay attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
It wouldn’t be surprising to hear Walz make such a comment, particularly when attacking Republican rhetoric.
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