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Hey Friends, and happy Tuesday!
Tonight, JD Vance and Tim Walz go head to head in the only Vice Presidential debate of this election season. Vice Presidential debates often have much less of an impact on the race than Presidential debates do, but there are still some votes to be won and some interesting discussions to be had.
With just a couple of hours to go until these candidates step on stage, I wanted to give you a primer of what to look out for so you can watch the debate with a more informed perspective.
Setting the Scene
For some reason that I’ve never understood, Vice Presidential debates are often more policy-focused than their Presidential counterparts. Perhaps it’s the lack of a felt need to set the tone for the party, or the lower pressure of a smaller viewership. Either way, I expect this debate to be a little bit more focused on current events than either candidates rally sizes or personal predilections.
Some issues/questions I would not be surprised to hear tonight:
Discussion of the recent Israeli strikes on Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon/Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Israel over the last 24 hours
A question about JD Vance’s tweets about Haitian immigrants in Ohio and the hate/bomb threats that have followed
Talk about Hurricane Helena and how the Biden administration is doing well/doing poorly at assisting the victims (especially those in the swing state of North Carolina)
How JD Vance Wins
As one of the least popular Vice Presidential nominees in modern American history, JD Vance has a much harder job than Walz does tonight. He has had a net-negative favorability since Trump named him as his running-mate, and the numbers have only worsened since:
This isn’t just partisan bluster either: Gallup reports that while 87% of Democrats consider Tim Walz an excellent or good choice as a running-mate, just 75% of Republicans feel the same way about Vance.
Going into tonight, Vance will have to find a way to help close this enthusiasm gap while simultaneously increasing his appeal toward moderates.
Because of this, look for a lot of attacks against the Biden-Harris administration, combined with Vance leaning hard on his Appalachian upbringing to make him seem like a normal guy.
Vance’s problem is that he’s most authentic when he’s nasty. He comes across as smarmy when he tries for sensible.
This is going to be a tough line to walk for Vance; his behavior in previous weeks has shown that when he is on the offensive, he is often aggressive, boisterous, and even hateful. Just ask the residents of Springfield, Ohio.
I also anticipate Vance trying to leverage Walz’s more progressive positions around LGBTQ issues, the black lives matter movement, and his statements about “one man’s socialism is another man’s neighborliness”.
Walz has a few key weaknesses that can be exploited to gain the advantage among moderate voters. The question is if JD Vance is the man who can do it, and if he can do it without appearing pugnacious.
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How Tim Walz Wins
Tim Walz has the advantage heading into tonight, but that also means he has to overcome a higher set of expectations from voters. Between Trump, Harris, Vance, and Walz, polls regularly show the Minnesota Governor having the highest favorability:
The number one rule of the Vice Presidential nominee is to do no harm. While running mates rarely if ever win the election, a bad Vice Presidential pick can help sink the campaign (see: Sarah Palin).
For Walz, this means that he needs to primarily keep his composure. While he’ll be the more level-headed and genial candidate on stage tonight, it’s possible that he can get baited into saying something uncouth in an attempt to one-up Vance. This is especially true in the only debate so far that will not have the microphones muted.
Walz’s poll numbers have been just fine so far, and there’s a way in which seeming like a bit of a lightweight might actually inoculate him against some of the more ideologically freighted attacks — because even if he went along with radical policies, he doesn’t come across as a radical himself.
I’m expecting Walz to lean hard into Vance’s previous bluster, leveraging his talk about Haitian immigrants or “childless cat ladies” to position Vance as an unkind, out of touch, unneighborly person. He might try to draw a distinction between Vance’s history as a lawyer and venture capitalist and his own as a teacher and principal who grew up in small town Nebraska.
If Walz can rebuff Vance’s attacks while remaining cool, and potentially while baiting Vance to become angry or combative, he will easily win the evening.
The Real Takeaway
None of this matters all that much. Vice Presidential debates aren’t typically electorally important, and this debate will likely not be much different.
That being said, there is potential for a quotable moment, a viral clip, a “you are no Jack Kennedy” moment if you will:
Be on the lookout for each candidate to try for a quotable, meme-able clip that their campaign can use to drive clicks, sell merch, and use as an in-joke among their supporters to drive a feeling of galvanization that can improve turnout in November.