Walz, Vance face pivotal moment as they meet for vice presidential debate

Vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance face off Tuesday night in their first and likely only debate, a pivotal moment for both in the condensed presidential campaign.

They’ll come together in a 90-minute debate inside a CBS Broadcast Center studio in midtown Manhattan, standing at podiums but with no audience in the room to react to what they say.

Both candidates are lesser known to the American people than their running mates — Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump. 

Walz, a two-term Minnesota governor and former six-term congressman, was added to the Democratic ticket in August; Vance, in his first term as an Ohio senator, claimed a spot on the Republican ticket a few weeks before that.

The primetime event will give them a chance to introduce themselves to the public while also trying to make the case for why Vice President Harris or former President Trump would be the best fit to run the country. 

It’s also likely to be the closing argument for the campaigns because the candidates atop the ticket haven’t agreed on additional debates. The campaigns have been running hard in the swing states that could determine who will take the White House in 2025. 

With little margin for error, any slip-ups and memorable moments for Walz or Vance could be magnified.

Ahead of the debate, Vance’s campaign said it would highlight Walz’s role in enacting laws in Minnesota that he views as too liberal. That includes new legal protections for abortion and gender-affirming care and a new requirement that public schools carry period products in school bathrooms. They also ripped Walz over his departure from the Army National Guard after 24 years.

Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, who has been standing in for Walz during Vance debate practice sessions, panned his home-state leader as a shapeshifter. 

“I think Americans will start to see what we’ve long known in Minnesota, that Tim Walz is nothing more than Gavin Newsom in a flannel shirt,” Emmer said, referring to California’s governor. “I can tell you that he is a total fraud.”

“In Congress, he played the character of a greater Minnesota, ag-friendly outdoorsman who really cared about the people,” he continued. “Since then, he’s made it very clear to the people in greater Minnesota that he has very little interest in them by working to turn our state into Kamala Harris’ home state of California."

Democrats, in offering their own debate preview, said the Trump-Vance campaign is the one trying to reinvent itself. They said the Republican pair has downplayed past positions and actions to restrict abortion access and given false hope about paid coverage for in vitro fertilization treatments, as Trump has promised in recent weeks.

They’ve also sought to connect the GOP candidates to Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint that the Trump-Vance campaign has worked to distance itself from.

“Vance may lie to our faces about Project 2025,” said Minnesota state Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley. “But make no mistake: Trump and Vance have a plan to give Trump unprecedented unchecked power to roll back reproductive rights, raise the cost for middle class families and threaten our democracy.”

The candidates themselves have come hard at one another in rallies since mid-summer.

Vance has come after Walz over his handling of the riots in Minneapolis following George Floyd’s murder. He has raised doubts about Walz’s character by bringing up misstatements Walz made about his military service and the fertility treatment that helped Walz and his wife conceive. There has also been plenty of attention on the $250 million in nutrition-aid fraud committed during the pandemic.

Walz has frequently pointed to Vance’s record waffling on abortion access. 

During his run for the U.S. Senate in 2022, Vance said he supported a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy. He has since walked that back and not offered a clear position on whether a Trump-Vance Administration would support such a policy.

Walz has also brought up Project 2025 often. Vance has said he supports some of the ideas in the extensive conservative policy blueprint.

“They spent a lot of time pretending to know nothing about this. I coached high school football long enough to know, and trust me on this, when somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it,” Walz said at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Ahead of the debate, both candidates spent weeks in rehearsal sessions. Walz practiced with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg standing in as Vance. Meanwhile, Vance rehearsed with Congressman Tom Emmer portraying Walz.

Candidates who debated Walz during his runs for Congress and governor said his affable and folksy demeanor makes him likable to an audience and can be disarming to opponents. They also said that the freewheeling style can cause problems for the governor, since it sometimes causes him to misspeak.

Vance has been in his share of debates in the runup to his Senate election. He is known for piercing comebacks, the ability to unleash a litany of details on command and has a knack for turning any question into an opening to go on offense. But he also outwardly wears his frustration and sometimes comes off as evasive when presented with questions he doesn’t like.

The debate is 90 minutes and starts at 8 .p.m. CT. MPR News will carry the debate live on air and will have special programming leading up to the event.

MPR News reporters Clay Masters and Ellie Roth contributed to this report from St. Paul.

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