Vice presidential nominees don’t tend to decide elections, but they can tip them for or against the top of the ticket.
That’s the challenge for Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) when they confront one another on a debate stage Tuesday in New York City.
In what could be the last debate of the 2024 election and with voting already underway in several key states, Walz and Vance will try to do no harm to Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, respectively, with this cycle’s battlegrounds all within polling margins of error and only weeks remaining of their campaigns.
But it is Vance who is contending with higher expectations ahead of the 90-minute debate on CBS amid Harris’s momentum and Trump’s uneven performance against her earlier this month.
“A strong Vance debate performance is probably not going to move the needle, but it will provide momentum to a campaign that has struggled a little bit since the Philadelphia debate,” University of Michigan debate director Aaron Kall told the Washington Examiner.
A recent example of a vice presidential nominee helping their presidential counterpart includes President Joe Biden‘s debate against former House Speaker Paul Ryan in 2012 after former President Barack Obama‘s disappointing opening matchup against Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT). Another instance is former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole‘s debate in 1976 after former President Gerald Ford mistakenly said, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” during his debate.
“They can be a backstop and put some good winds in the sails of the campaign,” Kall said, adding they can also “change the news cycle.”
Vance’s debate could be complicated by his bumpy campaign so far, including criticism resurfaced from 2021 of the Democratic Party for being led by “a bunch of childless cat ladies” and a proposal from that same year that parents should have more votes than people without children. The first-term senator and former venture capitalist has defended his comments, adamant he was arguing that Democrats are “anti-family and anti-child.”
WHAT WALZ’S LAST DEBATE SAYS ABOUT HIS ODDS AGAINST VANCE
WHAT VANCE’S MOST RECENT DEBATE SAYS ABOUT HIS CHANCES AGAINST WALZ
In addition to Vance amplifying disputed claims about Haitian migrants eating pets of Springfield, Ohio residents, news outlets last week published a Trump campaign memo on his political weaknesses after aides of the former president were hacked by Iran. The senator, a former Trump critic, has contradicted Trump on policy, too, including regarding whether the former president would sign a federal abortion ban.
But Vance is “used to attacks,” as evidenced by his debate against former Ohio Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan during their Senate race in 2022, in which the senator “seemed to take them well but then pivoted and counterpunched,” according to Kall. Those skills have been homed by the interviews and more informal question-and-answer sessions Vance has taken part in with reporters since Trump announced him as his vice presidential pick.
Kall predicted Vance would be a more disciplined debater than Trump and would likely do what the former president “should have done” during his debate, which is to prosecute the case against Harris and Walz by underscoring the issues on which Republicans have an advantage. Those include the economy, particularly inflation, and immigration.
With between 40 million and 50 million people expected to watch, Vance has the added pressure of his own aspirations compared to Walz, who reportedly told Harris during her vice presidential selection process that he has no intention of running for president himself.
“Vance, he’s younger. He’s 40 years old. He’s the future of the MAGA movement,” Kall said. “He wants to make a good impression, and talk about his impressive story, and his rise from Appalachia, and coming over all those obstacles, and then going to Yale and everything.”
As chronicled by his 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy, Vance was raised in Middletown, Ohio by his grandparents amid his mother’s problems with drug addiction before enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps and being accepted into Yale Law School.
Vice presidential scholar Joel Goldstein agreed that the stakes are higher for Vance, with his performance potentially shaping voter perceptions concerning whether he is ready to be “a heartbeat away” from the presidency, whether Trump demonstrated good decision-making and values in choosing him, and whether he can be an effective campaign messenger going forward.
“He has less experience in high public office than any VP candidate in almost 90 years and has had a very rocky campaign to date in which polls indicate that his unfavorability ratings are relatively high and climbing,” Goldstein told the Washington Examiner. “He has pitched his message to the Trump MAGA base, but in doing so has alienated other voters, and his false attacks on Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, as well as other misstatements, have undermined his credibility.”
Vance’s campaign spokesman did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment by publication, but the senator’s average favorable-unfavorable rating is net negative 11 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight. In comparison, Walz’s is net positive 4 points.
While Trump tapping Vance represented him trying to protect his MAGA legacy over outreach to more establishment Republicans and independents, Harris tapping Walz is part of her attempt to appeal to voters who may have cast a ballot for Biden in the past, especially blue-collar, older, white, male voters in the blue wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, but are unsure about supporting her.
“It’s no accident that it sounds like Walz is doing debate prep in Michigan and plans on attending a Michigan-Minnesota football game on Saturday,” Kall said of the avid hunter. “He does a great job of relating. His biography, being a coach and a school teacher; just the way he plainly speaks, in some ways like Trump.”
Walz taught high school social studies and was a defensive coordinator football coach before running for Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District in 2006. He later became the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee before he was elected governor in 2018.
But Walz is not without his own weaknesses, including being arrested for driving under the influence in 1995, organizing high school study abroad programs in China for nine years, and misrepresenting his command sergeant major military rank and experience carrying “weapons of war” “in war” as part of the Army National Guard, despite not deploying to an active combat zone. The governor is additionally at risk of being out of practice, having participated in more rallies and fundraisers since receiving his promotion as opposed to press appearances, which were what increased his national profile in the first place.
“Walz, I think, just needs to maintain the status quo,” Kall said. “He has the opposite problem of Harris. Harris had a more liberal record in California and when she ran for president in 2019 and the Democratic primary, but has moderated in the administration and certainly now while running for president. Waltz is the reverse. When he was in that Republican or 50-50 congressional district for 12 years, he was very moderate.
“But then, when he became governor of Minnesota and the Minnesota legislature was very Democratic, he did a lot of liberal things. So he’s got to do a good job of explaining some of the liberal policies, how he handled the [George Floyd] riots, and just be prepared for that.”
Republicans have criticized Walz for not expeditiously mobilizing the Minnesota National Guard amid protests after Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody death in 2020.
“In contrast, Vance, I think, is a better debater,” Kall said. “Watching both of their past debates, I think he’s more polished. I think he’ll perform better than Trump, but he has more to do because Trump, he did well in June [against Biden], but he didn’t do well then against Harris.”
Vice presidential nominees have stumbled in the past, according to Democratic strategist Garry South, most notably former Vice President Dan Quayle, who compared himself to former President John F. Kennedy during his 1988 debate against Democratic pick Lloyd Bentsen.
“I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy,” Bentsen said.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
While former President George H.W. Bush and Quayle did emerge victorious from that election, independent candidate Ross Perot and his vice presidential pick Vice Admiral James Stockdale did not repeat their success in 1992 after Stockdale asked during his debate, “Who am I? Why am I here?”
“Generally, the presidential candidates just keep their fingers crossed that their running mates don’t make any irretrievable mistakes in the undercard debate,” South told the Washington Examiner.
