Tim Walz and J.D. Vance will face off on the debate stage Tuesday night in a matchup that both parties hope will demonstrate their vice presidential nominee’s ability to connect with voters in hotly contested states that will play a critical role in determining the U.S. election in 2018. November.
The debate, hosted by CBS News in New York, will begin at 9 p.m. ET.
“Both will be trying to connect with those key voters in the Midwest, and that’s part of the reason why each one of them was chosen,” said Matthew LeBow, a specialist in American politics at Western University in London, Ontario.
“Thinking about male voters particularly in those key swing states in the Midwest: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.”
Those states switched to the Republican Party when former President Donald Trump won the 2016 elections, and in 2020 they helped bring President Joe Biden to the White House.
Tuesday’s game could have a big impact. Opinion polls show that Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris are locked in a close contest, giving extra weight to anything that could influence voters on the margins, including the impression left by the vice presidential candidates. It could also be the final debate of the campaign, with both Harris and Trump’s teams failing to agree on another meeting.
The vice president’s role is usually as an attack dog for the person at the top of the ticket, arguing against the rival presidential candidate and his surrogate on stage. Vance and Walls have both embraced the role.
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Walz, the 60-year-old Democratic governor of Minnesota, has embraced his popular and outspoken demeanor since joining the ticket earlier this summer. He leaned into his Midwestern roots and the nickname “Coach Walz” from his pre-football coaching days.
This strategy has seen him gain significant support in opinion polls, but he will face a formidable opponent in Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio.
The 40-year-old has become a mainstay on cable news shows since his nomination as Donald Trump’s running mate was announced in July.
A former critic of Trump, Vance was elected to the US Senate in 2022 after becoming one of the former president’s biggest supporters.
Before entering politics, Vance rose to fame with the 2016 publication of his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”
The Republican campaign released a video before the debate to show Vance’s “sparkling energy.” In the video, which shows photos from his childhood, Vance talks about jobs disappearing from communities and the sense of hopelessness left behind.
Both men are expected to play on working-class rhetoric during the debate to lend credibility to their party’s plans on the economy and inflation.
Political experts said Harris dominated last month’s presidential debate by urging Trump to deliver speeches that deviated far from his intended goals of focusing on immigration and the economy.
Aaron Kahl, the debate director at the University of Michigan, said Vance is unlikely to fall into the same strategy, and he expects Tuesday night’s debate to focus more on politics.
But that doesn’t mean there won’t be harsh criticism.
Walz has been given credit for coining the nickname “weird” to describe his Republican opponents, and the attack has stuck with Vance, with several viral videos and memes targeting the senator’s past comments and encounters with constituents.
“They really can’t be completely at odds, like Harris and Trump,” Kahl said.
“I think there will be a lot of fireworks, given their personalities.”
—With files from The Associated Press
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
