Running mates face each other in debate that may tip poll

The two contenders to be US vice-president will present voters with competing versions of Midwest values when they face each other on Tuesday.

Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona. Picture: AFP

The two contenders to be US vice-president will present American voters with competing versions of Midwest values when they face each other on Tuesday night (Wednesday AEST) in what is likely to be the final TV debate of the election.

JD Vance, a senator from Ohio who is Donald Trump’s Republican running mate, and Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota picked by Kamala Harris, both claim to be the authentic voice of the heartland from polar opposite ideological positions.

The vice-presidential debate is a feature of modern American election campaigns that does little to move the needle but could have more impact in a year when the presidential candidates have already had their only head-to-head after Mr Trump declined Ms Harris’s challenge for a second encounter.

What 60-year-old Mr Walz, a former congressman, and Senator Vance, 40, author of the bestseller Hillbilly Elegy about his tough upbringing, have in common is an attempt to appeal to swing voters by presenting a folksy persona backed up with a record of military service.

Mr Walz is a former high school teacher and American football coach who served 24 years in the National Guard before spending 12 years in the House of Representatives and becoming state governor in 2019. Senator Vance, a graduate of Yale Law School, spent four years in the marines as a military journalist and became a venture capitalist and author before winning a Senate seat in 2022.

“Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community – come on! That’s not what middle America is,” Mr Walz told an audience in Philadelphia in August when Ms Harris announced him as her running mate.

Senator Vance is similarly dismissive of Mr Walz’s authenticity. He told a Philadelphia campaign event a few weeks later: “Everything that comes out of his mouth about his military service is at least 25 per cent a lie and it occurred to me the closest Tim Waltz has ever come to combat, even though he says he carried a weapon in war, was when he let rioters burn Minneapolis.”

Mr Walz received a request from the mayor of Minneapolis for the National Guard after rioting following the murder of George Floyd. He did not sign the order until the following afternoon and said later that he was waiting for a detailed plan from the mayor.

Senator Vance claims that true midwestern values are deeply conservative, although he has modified some views after becoming Mr Trump’s running mate. In January 2022, he said “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally”. Since being picked in July, he has echoed Mr Trump’s position that individuals states should decide.

Mr Walz defends his liberal values in midwestern terms and wants to restore the national right of access to abortion. Last month he told a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin: “In Minnesota, just like in Wisconsin, we respect our neighbours and the personal choices they make ... because we know there’s a golden rule. Mind your own damn business.”

Mr Walz has held mock debates with Senator Vance being played by Pete Buttigieg, 42, a former midwestern mayor from South Bend, Indiana, who is President Joe Biden’s Transportation Secretary.

Mr Buttigieg has been scathing about Senator Vance, picking up on his 2021 comments that Democrats running the country were “a bunch of childless cat ladies” and parents should have more votes than childless Americans.

Senator Vance’s preparation includes advice from Tom Emmer, 63, a congressman from Mr Walz’s home state of Minnesota. “It is very clear today that the Tim Walz that was here in congress was literally, he was a fraud ... No amount of ‘Minnesota nice’ ... is going to make up for Tim Walz’s failed policy record.”

The debate hosted by CBS News at the CBS Broadcast Center, in New York, begins at 9pm.

THE TIMES