Where to Watch JD Vance and Tim Walz Meet for Vice Presidential Debate | World News

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. Walz, before Harris picked him, was the Democrat who coined “strange” as a pejorative for the Republican candidacy. 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 highlighted their small-town, middle-American credentials in contrast to Trump, the New York billionaire, 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:

Is it more Walz vs. Vance or Harris vs. Trump?

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 stressed, recalling the duel between Republican Dick Cheney and Democrat Joe Lieberman in 2000. Cheney continued to attack (Al) Gore, and Lieberman tried to to make himself sympathetic instead of defending Gore. … Attacks cannot be left unanswered.

Abortion rights and views on family will be at the forefront

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 injecting 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, on the other hand, have struggled to deliver a unified message on abortion rights that reflects how politically sensitive the issue is for Republicans, as support for abortion access has waned since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Roe v. Repealing and ending Wade has increased a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

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 and Walz compete for economic advantage

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.

Harris, for her part, says building the middle class will be a critical goal of my presidency.” She acknowledges the struggles of many consumers but generally defends Biden’s overall record of economic growth, low unemployment and rising wages since inheriting a COVID-19 pandemic. Disease free fall.

Both campaigns contain competing packages of economic proposals, including different tax cuts and subsidies for specific sectors. Expect the candidates to spend a lot of time convincing the dwindling portion of persuadable voters that their ticket better fits the everyday economic concerns of most U.S. households.

The two are expected to talk about their Central American roots

Even if the debate is about Harris and Trump, the two candidates have come here not least because of their respective biographies.

Trump’s election was an attempt to further solidify the Republican Party as an electoral vehicle for Middle America. Vance, the author of the memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” grew up in small-town Ohio and has roots that match his economic populism in a way that billionaire Trump does not.

Walz and Harris both grew up in the middle class, but Walz remains firmly rooted there, from his childhood on a farm in Nebraska to the high school classrooms of Minnesota before he ran for office. It is both a juxtaposition and an affirmation of Harris’ story as the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father.

Both men have made their families part of their political identities. Everyone has a working spouse. Walz has two young adult and teenage children. Vance has three young sons. The Walzes and Vances are more traditional political families than those of the presidential candidates: Harris has adult stepchildren from her 10-year marriage to Doug Emhoff; Trump has five children from three marriages.

Even as they try to keep their bosses in the spotlight, expect both vice presidents to emphasize their own stories.

The responsibility for fact checking lies with the candidates

CBS announced Friday that it will be up to the candidates to remain honest with each other in Tuesday’s debate, a sticking point in previous debates this year.

In the June debate between Trump and Biden, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash limited follow-up questions and did not fact-check any of the participants. In September’s Trump-Harris debate, ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis weighed in with factual corrections to some of Trump’s most egregious misrepresentations.