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 a television set and to expose their antagonisms.
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For the two running mates, this is undoubtedly the most important moment of this ultra-tight campaign, at the end of which only one will become vice-president.
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, author of a bestselling book and atypical senator with a populist anti-immigration discourse, he had very little political experience before Donald Trump offered to assist him in July.
At the antipodes
Twenty years separate the two elected officials – Tim Walz is 60 years old, his rival 40 – in reverse copy of the two decades which separate Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
But they are also poles apart on the major issues at stake in the November 5 vote, from abortion to aid to Ukraine, from guns to energy priorities, from tax measures to the fight against inflation .
The hurricane Helenewhich left more than 110 dead and caused devastating floods in the United States, could come into their discussions, with Republicans accusing Democrats of having mismanaged the disaster.
The debate will take place in New York, at the CBS Broadcast Center, the channel which organizes it.
Getty Images via AFP
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.
Unlike the two previous presidential debates, which pitted Donald Trump and Joe Biden on June 27, then Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on September 10, the microphones will remain open, allowing the opponents to cut each other off.
The oratory contest should be fierce, with the objective of convincing undecided voters who could tip one of the famous seven hotly contested key states.
The tradition of the debate between vice-presidential candidates dates back to 1976, almost half a century ago. It should allow Americans to assess the ability to govern of those concerned, the vice-president being in the United States the second in the order of succession at the top of power.
“Suspicious”
Tim Walz, a former teacher of rural origins and native of Nebraska, and JD Vance, who recounted his difficult childhood in an America ravaged by unemployment and deindustrialization, were both chosen to appeal to a rather white and working-class electorate in the northern and central United States, where they come from.
AFP
They have already clashed through indirect statements, in a campaign of acid rhetoric. Tim Walz was the first to describe the Trump-Vance tandem as “shady”, an expression that gained popularity.
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.
AFP
In the history of American presidential elections, it is generally accepted that the debates between the lieutenants of the two main candidates have a relatively weak influence on the vote. But, Donald Trump having refused to face Kamala Harris again, this oratorical contest could be the finale of this campaign.
In an interview on Tuesday with Fox News, the Republican billionaire assured that the debate would be “rigged” in favor of Tim Walz, whom he described as “a complete imbecile”.
Dogs and cats
The pressure will undoubtedly be greater on the shoulders of JD Vance, less popular than Tim Walz in the polls.
The Ohio senator is one of the first Republican figures to have relayed the false theory according to which Haitian migrants were eating cats and dogs in a town in the state, later taken up by Donald Trump during his face to face with face to face with Kamala Harris.
He was also the one who made fun of “unhappy cat ladies,” a term that shocked many, in reference to people without children.
JD Vance could also repeat on Tuesday his accusation that Tim Walz left his National Guard unit just before it was sent to Iraq, calling into question his military courage.
