Historically, debates between vice presidential candidates in the United States have always been considered a “second table” in the race for the White House.
According to the criteria of
Usually, it is a “hidden” meeting between the three that usually make headlines before Americans go to the polls. And, given their secondary role in a future government, what they say usually has little influence on the voters’ decision.
But tonight, between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz, could well break with that tradition.
In large part because we are facing an atypical race in which, as things are going, there will only be a debate between Donald Trump Kamala Harris, the two candidates competing for the Oval Office.
Trump, as is known, has rejected a second meeting with Harris after his dismal performance at the beginning of last month, and the one he held against Joe Biden in June, where he was the clear winner, is now a distant memory after the current president will choose to withdraw from the race.
“Given that there will not be another presidential debate, this will be the last opportunity that the American electorate will have to see the candidates, or their representatives, on the same stage airing their differences over the vision of the country,” says Corey Lewandowski, who advises Trump for many years.
They both come to the meeting with different objectives and have clear advantages and disadvantages that they will try to exploit and defend.
What are Vance’s challenges and opportunities?
The task for Vance, in that sense, is a little more complex. According to polls, the current senator from Ohio is one of the vice presidential candidates with the lowest popularity since these types of measurements have been made.
In the average of portal 538 surveys, Only 34 percent of the electorate has a positive view of Vance compared to 45 percent who reject him (difference of 11 percentage points).
While Vance had little national recognition before Trump named him as his running mate, some statements he has made since then have gone down poorly with the majority of the electorate.
Particularly, when he criticized women who did not have children, calling them “childless cat ladies.”
Although he has been trying to rectify his message for weeks, The idea that he despises women who choose not to have a family continues to weigh on him and he will surely be exploited by Walz..
Additionally, he was the one who started the false rumor that Haitians were eating “cats and dogs” in an Ohio city. Something that Trump repeated in the debate with Harris and that continues to be a source of ridicule and also rejection among some due to the stigmatization of immigrants.
But perhaps the biggest challenge Vance will have will be defending his own attacks on Trump. Before reaching the Senate and becoming a ‘Trumpist’, Vance made a career of criticizing the former president, whom he called “reprehensible”, “cultural heroine” and even “the Hitler of the United States.”
In 2020, when Trump was running for re-election against Biden, Vance stated in private messages revealed by the Washington Post that his economic agenda had been a failure and that was why he would lose the elections.
Although the senator has been saying that his current boss’s proposals ended up convincing him – and he will probably insist on that tonight – it will be uncomfortable, at the very least, for the criticisms to be aired before the national audience that will watch the debate.
But Vance has several weapons in his favor. First of all, he is an articulate speaker, with vast experience in front of a microphone and who is unlikely to fall for the provocations of which Trump was a victim in the meeting with Harris.
“In the last meeting, Trump missed multiple opportunities to orient the debate towards the record of Harris and the Biden administration. Vance will try to score points where Trump could not by focusing on that record and not on Walz and his personality,” says Stan Barnes, former senator Republican from the state of Arizona.
Additionally, If things go well for him, he has an excellent opportunity to present himself again to the electorate and clear the nation of the fact that he is a far-right misogynist..
What are Walz’s challenges and opportunities?
Walz, for his part, also has strong sides and weak sides. Unlike Vance, he has little experience with the format and has admitted that he worries about not living up to expectations.
And, like Vance, he will have things to clarify. Among them having exaggerated his role in the Iraq war – he said at an event that he had fought in the conflict when in reality he never set foot in the country – and the handling he gave to the violent protests that broke out in Minnesota, the state from which he is governor, after the deaths of the African American George Floyd in 2020.
Walz, in addition, will have the difficult task of defending the decisions of an administration of which he was not part and with ambiguous results both economically and in foreign policy.. Especially in light of the current crisis in the Middle East, following Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.
But Walz also has many points in his favor that he will try to collect.
Unlike Vance, educated at Harvard and somewhat stuffy by his training, Walz is seen as a “wash and ironer”: a teacher and football coach from the Midwest who speaks to, and relates directly to, the great class. American average.
Precisely, the reason why Harris selected him with the idea of strengthening her candidacy in states in this same area – Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – that are called to define these elections.
One of Walz’s goals, in fact, is to speak to undecideds, independents and men who still have doubts about Harris and her credentials to govern the country.
You keep the proportions, tonight’s debate is the opposite of what was the one between Trump and Harris, where Vance is seen as the “academic” and a more spontaneous and explosive Walz.
In a tight race like the current one, where the polls speak of a technical tie, Any slip or blow in favor could end up being important in the final outcome.
And hence the relevance of a meeting that at any other time would have been almost inconsequential.
SERGIO GÓMEZ MASERI
EL TIEMPO correspondent
Washington
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