When the vice presidential candidates take the debate stage in New York Tuesday evening, each may fundamentally appeal to a certain set of Californians.
Republican U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio is a Catholic conservative who briefly worked in Silicon Valley as a venture capitalist. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota is a liberal who once advised a high school LGBTQ club — and has been called “Gavin Newsom in a flannel shirt” by opponents.
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Vice presidential debates have rarely made a smidgen of difference on Election Day, much less than secondary candidates themselves. Remember U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle in 1988? “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” The Bush-Quayle ticket still won by a landslide.
But with the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump exceptionally tight, there’s a chance this year could be different.
“This is such a close race, with these razor-thin margins in the swing states, that it wouldn’t take much for something to matter,” said Melissa Michelson, Menlo College political science professor. “And so if something big happens at the debate, and that just moves a handful of people and a handful of precincts in one of these states, sure, theoretically, it could matter.”
The pressure is on Vance in particular, especially after Trump is widely seen as having lost his one and only debate with Harris last month.
Vance’s debunked assertions that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating pets in his Springfield, Ohio, district led to Trump’s memorable claims on the debate stage — “They’re eating the dogs! They’re eating the cats!” — which is now set to music in viral memes.
The issue will likely come up again if “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan of “Face the Nation” ask Vance about his comment to CNN’s Dana Bash that he was willing “to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention.”
Although the issue may seem like an easy win for Walz, it’s tricky territory.
“If they go to the cats and dogs and say that Vance admitted he made up this line, then Vance can talk about immigration and the border some more, which is not good for the Harris-Walz campaign,” Michelson from Menlo College said. “Regardless of Harris’ visit to the border, this is an issue where most people think that Trump has a stronger policy, and a lot of people are concerned about immigrants and what a continuing flow of immigrants into the United States is doing for the economy.”
In a race that could come down to less than 44,000 voters in six or seven swing states like it did in 2020, every vote counts. The economy and abortion likely will be two significant issues raised Tuesday night — and both candidates will work to appeal to coveted suburban women voters. Vance will likely tout Trump’s years in office when interest rates and inflation were lower. Walz will probably remind voters that Trump appointed Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and point to Vance’s support of a national abortion ban.
Along with their politics, Vance and Walz bring far different personas to the stage.
Vance is 40 years old, a Yale Law graduate and bestselling author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” about his difficult childhood growing up in Appalachia and Ohio. After meeting Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel during a Yale speech, Vance moved to the Bay Area in 2013 to work at biotech firm Circuit Therapeutics, then with Thiel’s recommendation was hired in 2016 at VC firm Mithril Capital. His California connections have become billionaire donors, who helped convince Trump to sign on Vance in the first place.
Vance was an early Trump critic — another potential debate topic — but says Trump’s term in office convinced him otherwise. He comes across as polished and aggressive, and relishes debating.
David McCuan, a Sonoma State University political science professor, said that Vance will have to persuade viewers that “those zillionaires of Silicon Valley” who support him “are like every other American.”
“It’s not an enviable place, because while Harris and Democrats have raised a lot of money and hang out with a crowd of well-to-do Democratic donors, a la Barack Obama, they’ve been able to blunt a lot of that criticism by pointing to the weirdness of the crypto crowd and the Elon Musk crowd, and tying those groups together,” McCuan said.
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Walz, a former high school social studies teacher and football coach, championed free breakfasts and lunches for all Minnesota public school children. He served 24 years in the Army National Guard, but has been criticized for retiring from service in 2005 to run for Congress despite knowing his unit could be deployed to Iraq, which it was nearly a year later. He also been criticized for his tough COVID restrictions and the George Floyd protests that originated in his state.
He is 60, comes across as folksy, posted videos with his daughter at the Minnesota State Fair and launched the term “weird” against Trump and Vance into the Democratic campaign lexicon.
Walz has a clear job to do during Tuesday’s debate, which begins at 6 p.m. PDT and will simulcast on Fox and MSNBC, “which is to reach out to rural voters to whom Democrats have a difficult time connecting,” said USC professor and political analyst Dan Schnur.
“Harris didn’t make a great deal of effort in that direction in her debate,” Schnur said. “So that falls to Waltz.”
Walz, like Vance, is a surrogate for his No. 1. And Walz’s boss is Harris — a Berkeley native who spent her career as a prosecutor in Oakland and San Francisco before winning statewide office as Attorney General then U.S. Senator. San Francisco, with its homelessness and shoplifting problems making national news, has been a perennial political punching bag, especially during the Trump years. It may be so again Tuesday.
“Vance is a pretty good debater, he’s pretty smart,” said Bill Whalen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution. “But what if he comes in too hot and too intense? People aren’t going to like him. Walz is this kind of guy-next-door, has this barbecue kind of thing going for him. But what if he is too over-caffeinated? Maybe he kind of overdoes it as well. It’s all about how they perform, not how we think they’re going to perform.”