The matchup, hosted by CBS News in New York, might not carry the same stakes as the Sept. 10 debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. But it offers their top lieutenants a fresh opportunity to introduce themselves, vouch for their bosses and fulfill a time-honored role of a running mate: attack dog. It will involve the biggest television and online audience either No. 2 will see before Election Day.
Walz, the 60-year-old Minnesota governor, and Vance, a 40-year-old U.S. senator from Ohio, have previewed potential approaches for weeks. Walz, before Harris selected him, was the Democrat who coined “weird” as a go-to pejorative for the Republican ticket. Vance assails the governor's progressive record as proof Democrats are too far left for voters.
Vance has mocked his fellow veteran's military service record. Walz hammers Vance's opposition to abortion rights and his views on family life. Both men have played up their small-town, middle-America credentials — contrasts to Trump, the billionaire native New Yorker, and Harris, the California Bay Area native.
Going into the debate, a new AP-NORC poll suggests Walz is better liked than Vance, giving the Republican perhaps a steeper challenge.
The poll found that only a quarter of registered voters have a somewhat or very favorable view of the Ohio senator, while about half have a somewhat or very unfavorable view. 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.
As much as the debate is about Harris and Trump, the running mates got here in no small part because of their respective biographies.
Trump's choice was a play to further cement the GOP ticket as the choice for middle America. The author of the “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir who grew up in small-town Ohio, Vance has roots to match his economic populism in ways the billionaire Trump does not.
Walz and Harris both grew up middle class, but Walz remains firmly ensconced there, going from his boyhood on a Nebraska farm to the high school classrooms of Minnesota before he ran for office. It's both a juxtaposition with and reinforcement of Harris' story as the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father.
Both men have made their families part of their political identities. Each have working spouses. Walz has two children — young adult and teenage. Vance has three young sons. The Walzes and Vances are more traditional political families than those of the presidential nominees: Harris has adult stepchildren from her decade-old marriage to Doug Emhoff; Trump has five children from three marriages.
Expect both running mates, even as they try to keep the spotlight on their bosses, to highlight their own stories.
