What to watch when JD Vance and Tim Walz meet for a vice president debate

ATLANTA (AP) — Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz meet Tuesday in the only vice presidential debate of the 2024 election, featuring undercards that have spent two months battling each other and the opposing candidates vying for the spots leading major parties come together.

The match, hosted by CBS News in New York, may not have the same stakes as the Sept. 10 debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. But it offers her top lieutenants a new opportunity to step forward, vouch for their superiors and assume the time-honored role of a vice president: attack dog. It will include the largest television and online audience watching No. 2 before Election Day.

Walz, the 60-year-old governor of Minnesota, and Vance, a 40-year-old US senator from Ohio, have been eyeing possible approaches for weeks. Before Harris picked him, Walz was the Democrat who coined “weird” as a derogatory slur for the Republican nominee. Vance criticizes the governor’s progressive record as evidence that Democrats are too far left for voters.

Vance mocked his comrade’s military service. Walz criticizes Vance’s opposition to abortion rights and his views on family life. Both men have demonstrated their credentials as small-town, middle-America residents – in contrast to Trump, the billionaire New Yorker, and Harris, a California native from the Bay Area.

It sets up a potentially violent night in Manhattan. Here are the dynamics to consider when the rivals meet in person for the first time:

Running mates have a balancing act. Their main job is to advocate for their superiors. But a vice presidential candidate’s credibility and connection to the audience are important factors in achieving this goal. If a voter doesn’t like Messenger, they are less likely to buy the message.

As the debate begins, a new AP-NORC poll suggests Walz is more popular than Vance, potentially 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; The rest don’t know enough to say.

Still, Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat and 2016 vice presidential candidate, warned attendees not to think too much about themselves.

“The only advice that matters is to protect the top of the ticket,” Kaine insisted, recalling the 2000 duel between Republican Dick Cheney and Democrat Joe Lieberman. “Cheney continued to attack (Al) Gore, and Lieberman tried to make himself sympathetic instead of defending Gore. … You can’t leave attacks unanswered.”

Democrats believe abortion rights and reproductive health care will motivate their core voters and influence swing voters.

Walz has already tried to capitalize on this by mixing his story into the argument. The governor often talks about how he and his wife Gwen needed fertility treatments to have their daughter. Democrats excoriated Vance for his 2021 joke about “childless cat ladies” dotting American life. And Walz was eager to reiterate Harris’ emphasis on abortion rights as the anchor of her overall campaign theme, “freedom.”

Vance and Trump, meanwhile, have struggled to deliver a unified message on abortion rights — a reflection of how politically sensitive the issue is for Republicans, as support for abortion access has waned since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Roe v. Repealing Wade has increased a woman’s constitutional right to have an abortion. Trump boasts about appointing conservatives who helped defeat Roe and return abortion regulation to state governments. Many Republicans now want to go beyond state bans and limit the process at the federal level, but Trump has suggested that repealing Roe is enough. He has also waffled about how he will vote on a referendum in Florida that would expand abortion rights.

Vance said in August that Trump would veto a national ban if it were approved by Congress. A few weeks later, during Trump’s debate with Harris, the former president declined to answer, saying, “I haven’t spoken to JD about it.” The Harris campaign amplified Vance’s statement as a Senate candidate that he wanted a nationwide ban of abortion.

Vance often makes clearer arguments than Trump when it comes to boosting American manufacturing, helping workers and punishing companies. He regularly attacks the Biden-Harris administration over inflation. If there’s one broad issue on which Vance wants to put Walz on the defensive and President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, it’s the economy.