Heartland-born and raised vice presidential contenders Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will venture into the Big Apple for Tuesday night’s high-stakes debate, with just over four weeks to go until election night.
Both Walz, 60, and Vance, 40, are feeling intense pressure to please their running mates and deliver a strong performance to woo voters in what is likely to be the last televised verbal showdown of the tight 2024 presidential race.
The two men have vigorously traded barbs on the campaign trail, feuding over who’s the “weird” one and quibbling over the values of middle America. Now the pair will get to verbally duke it out in person.
Here’s what you need to know about Tuesday night’s big showdown.
Where and when is the debate?
Unlike the ABC News presidential debate, CBS News’ opted to forgo any fancy locations for its VP showdown and will instead oversee the verbal bout in its studio located near the West Side of Midtown Manhattan.
The debate will kick off at 9 p.m. ET and is slated to span roughly 90 minutes.
New York is widely seen as a reliable Democratic stronghold, though former President Donald Trump has been optimistic that he can score something of an upset in his native state.
How can I watch the debate?
CBS will be broadcasting the debate on its television network, digital CBS News platform and Paramount+.
Additionally, the debate will be available for simulcast on most of the big networks including Fox News, CNN, PBS, C-SPAN and more.
Who is moderating the debate?
“CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan will referee the matchup between Vance and Walz.
Neither of them has moderated a general election presidential or vice presidential debate before, though they both were involved in a 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate.
O’Donnell announced in July that she intends to step down as anchor of “CBS Evening News” after the presidential election. She held that post for about five years.
Brennan has experience in dealing with Vance, having conducted interviews with him on her “Face the Nation” program.
The network has dropped hints that the moderators may not be as aggressive at fact-checking the debate as the ABC News hosts were in September, which drew backlash from conservatives, who felt the interventions were uneven.
Will there be another debate?
At this point, no other debate has been scheduled.
Trump has also ruled out another showdown with Harris, previously telling The Post that he doesn’t “think that there’s any need for it.”
Harris has been trying to goad Trump into another verbal bout, after having previously declined to jump on his overtures for two follow-up debates prior to their clash on ABC News.
How have they prepared?
Both Vance and Walz have been prepping for their debate for days, their campaigns have said.
The Minnesota governor has undergone intense prep work for the debate, including hours of practice sessions with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — who is widely seen as a talented orator — playing the role of Vance.
Meanwhile, Vance has trained for the debate with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who’s eager to help take down his home state governor.
Vance is a graduate of Yale Law School, widely seen as one of the best law schools in the country and Democrats generally view him as a very formidable debater.
The two campaigns have been carefully navigating the expectation-setting game ahead of the verbal bout, trying to avoid having expectations too high.
Will there be live mics?
In sharp contrast to the CNN and ABC News presidential debates, the microphones will not be muted in between each candidate’s turn during the CBS News debate.
That could set the stage for a more fiery showdown between the pair, as it would enable Vance and Walz to interrupt each other. CBS has noted that it is reserving the right to kill the mics if needed.
Will there be an audience?
Similar to the CNN and ABC News debates, there will be no live studio audience at that CBS veep debate.
Candidates will each have two minutes to respond and only the moderators are permitted to ask questions during the debate. Vance will give the final closing statement as he won a coin toss.
What to watch for
Given that Brennan is CBS News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent, foreign policy could be a fairly dominant topic, especially given the tremendous turbulence on the world stage in recent days.
Vance’s views on Ukraine, have particularly rattled the US ally, drawing a rebuke from its president Volodymyr Zelensky. The United Nations held its general assembly session last week and conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is simmering.
Other perennial hot-button issues such as abortion, border security, inflation and the economy will likely come up as well.
Another key question will be whether the candidates are able to engage in a disciplined exchange of ideas on policy or whether it will devolve into a messy, personal slugfest?
Following Trump’s debate against Harris, the 45th president faced criticism from some Republicans for taking her bait on jabs about his crowd sizes and indictments, while the vice president sought to get under his skin.
While neither Vance nor Walz have a reputation for going off on tangents like Trump. Still, there are still plenty of controversies that could distract both Vance and Walz from a focused back-and-forth on policy this go-around.
Prior to the ABC News debate, Vance amplified unsubstantiated claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield Ohio consuming people’s pets.
There has also been controversy over Walz’s military record, with Vance accusing him of “stolen valor” as well as highlighting concerns about the governor’s ties to China. Vance has also ripped Walz’s handling of the 2020 riots that erupted following the death of George Floyd.
Could the vice presidential debate affect polling?
Over 67.1 million viewers tuned into the Trump-Harris debate hosted by ABC News last month, according to Nielsen data. In June, 51.27 million viewers watched the Trump debate against President Biden hosted by CNN.
Back in 2020, over 57 million people watched former Vice President Mike Pence’s debate against Harris.
On the day of the Sept. 10 ABC News debate between Trump and Harris, the vice president was ahead of Trump by about 1.9 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of multicandidate polling at the time.
Three weeks later, she has a 2 percentage point edge over Trump in the RCP average.
What comes next?
Tuesday night’s debate could very well be the last time candidates on the two major party tickets interact with each other before the Nov. 5 election.
Trump will attend the traditional Al Smith dinner in New York City — set to be held days before the election — but Harris has indicated she will not. In past cycles, that Catholic charity event served as an opportunity for rivaling presidential contenders to come together.
In the meantime, the two candidates will barnstorm the key swing states across the country and scramble to eke out a victory in what most polling indicates is a tight election.
Trump is slated to make his grand return to the Butler Farm Show grounds on Saturday in Pennsylvania, where he had a brush with an assassin’s bullet back in July.
Early voting has already kicked off in parts of more than half a dozen states across the country, meaning that a decent chunk of voters have likely already cast their ballots.
There are 34 days before Election Day.
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