JD Vance and Tim Walz meet Tuesday night in the first and only vice presidential debate of the 2024 campaign.
Historically, the face-off between running mates hasn’t mattered in terms of the outcome in November. Nevertheless, vice presidential debates have yielded some of the most memorable political moments in recent history.
For many, the evening will serve as an introduction to Ohio Sen. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Walz. In a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, roughly a quarter of those polled said they had never heard of the two men.
Los Angeles Times columnists Lorraine Ali, Mark Z. Barabak, Anita Chabria and Doyle McManus will be watching the debate live, discussing the highlights and lowlights as they happen.
How to watch the debate| Debate moderators| What to know
5:20: p.m.: The most important thing to remember about a vice presidential debate is that the two candidates onstage aren’t really running against each other. They’re just surrogates (OK, super-surrogates). Their main job is to represent the candidates at the top of the tickets.
That’s why Lloyd Bentsen’s “Jack Kennedy” line, while brilliant, didn’t affect the election of 1988. It’s why campaign insiders consider Joe Biden’s solid 2012 performance against Paul Ryan a model to emulate, even though it didn’t feature any memorable quips. Biden made a better case for his boss, then-President Barack Obama, than Obama had made in his lackluster first debate against Mitt Romney
So Tim Walz’s main mission is to make the most effective case he can for a Harris presidency, and remind voters of everything they dislike about Donald Trump. JD Vance’s mission is to make the case for a Trump presidency and reinforce undecided voters’ doubts about Harris.
I’d expect Vance to spend most of his time talking up Trump’s first-term economy and attacking both Harris and Vance as “dangerously liberal.” Polls suggest those have been the Trump campaign’s most effective messages to the few remaining undecided voters.
And I’d expect Walz to deliver a folksy explanation of Harris’ economic plan and a middle-class attack on Trump’s economic proposals (tax cuts for corporations, high tariffs that would push prices up).
Wild Card: Will Walz remind voters that Trump is 78 years old (in contrast to Harris’ youthful-by-current-standards 59), making it more possible that Vance, with his weird views on childless cat ladies, could end up in the Oval Office?
—Doyle McManus
5:10 p.m.: Allow me to kick things off with some thoughts on what I’ll be watching for, then you all can chime in.
As noted, it’s virtually certain that nothing said or done at CBS News headquarters in New York will matter a whole lot once the studio lights fade. Recall, from 1988, Dan Quayle and the infamous “You’re no Jack Kennedy” rejoinder, which Democrat Lloyd Bentsen leveled after the youthful Quayle compared himself to the youthful president. The gibe blew Quayle off the debate stage; then, just a few weeks later, Republicans won the White House in a landslide.
That said, it could be an interesting and, dare I say, entertaining evening — depending on your tastes in entertainment. Tim Walz and JD Vance share a Midwestern pedigree and that’s pretty much it.
Walz is all avuncular, with his can-I-help-shovel-your-walk approachability and good cheer. His attacks — “They’re weird!” — tend to singe, not burn. Will he take a more aggressive tack tonight?
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Vance has certainly given him plenty to work with, whether it’s his denigrating remarks about “childless cat ladies” or the phony horror stories he’s conjured about supposedly pet-eating Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
Vance, who’s approached his understudy role with fists up and teeth bared, seems to have the tougher challenge of the two, making himself appear more likable while taking on Walz and, especially, Kamala Harris.
But maybe Vance doesn’t care about his popularity with voters beyond the MAGA base. He may simply play to an audience of one, Donald Trump, who only has one mode and one method: attack, attack, attack.
—Mark Z. Barabak