Exactly three weeks after the tense debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, it is the turn of Tim Walz and JD Vance, their lieutenants, to meet on Tuesday on the New York set of CBS at 9 p.m. (i.e. 3 a.m. morning in France). For the two running mates, this is undoubtedly the most important moment of this campaign, at the end of which only one will become vice-president. Indeed, their performance should allow Americans to assess their ability to govern, knowing that the vice-president of the United States is second in the order of succession at the top of power.
It is also an opportunity for everyone to fill a real awareness gap, even if the names “Harris-Walz” and “Trump-Vance” are now systematically attached to electoral posters. Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, was little known outside his state when Kamala Harris chose him in August to form the Democratic “ticket” with him. As for JD Vance, an atypical senator with a populist anti-immigration discourse, he had very little political experience before Donald Trump offered to assist him in July.
Two men, two worlds
Twenty years separate the two elected officials (Tim Walz is 60 years old, his rival 40 years old) in reverse copy of the two decades which separate Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. But they are also poles apart on the major themes of the November 5 election, from abortion to aid to Ukraine, from firearms to energy priorities, from tax measures to the fight against inflation.
Tim Walz and JD Vance will battle it out for 90 minutes, including commercial breaks, with no audience other than the tens of millions of expected viewers. They will not be allowed to bring written notes and the microphones will remain open, allowing opponents to interrupt each other.
Convince undecided voters
Their face-to-face should be tough, with the objective of convincing undecided voters who could tip one of the famous seven key states (“swing states”). They have already clashed through indirect statements, in a campaign of acid rhetoric. Tim Walz was the first to call the Trump-Vance tandem “shady”.
Tim Walz, a former teacher of rural origins and native of Nebraska, and JD Vance, who recounted in a best-selling book his difficult childhood in an America scarred by deindustrialization, were both chosen to appeal to a predominantly white and popular in the northern and central United States, where they come from. For his part, JD Vance, an anti-system elected official with a unique career since he had a career in the army as well as in Silicon Valley, never stops denouncing the record of his rival governor, seeing it as an illustration of a progressive left disconnected from reality.