Vance and Walz to face off in US vice presidential debate: What to know

Tim Walz and JD Vance are facing off this week in the first – and likely only – United States vice-presidential debate ahead of November’s election.

Walz and Vance will take the debate stage in New York on Tuesday evening as the race gears up for the final stretch before Election Day.

Walz, the governor of Minnesota, was chosen as Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’s running-mate in August.

Vance – a senator from Ohio – was named as Republican candidate Donald Trump’s vice-presidential nominee as the Republican Party gathered for its national convention in July.

Since then, both vice-presidential candidates have crisscrossed the country, holding rallies and town hall meetings as they try to appeal to voters.

Tuesday’s debate will give them another opportunity to lay out their policy priorities and try to give their respective sides a boost in what is slated to be a hard-fought vote on November 5.

Here’s what you need to know about the event.

See you on October 1, JD. https://t.co/ssi0FdseN9

— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) August 14, 2024

What time and where is the debate?

The debate will begin at 9pm local time in New York City on Tuesday (01:00 GMT on Wednesday). It will run for 90 minutes.

Who is moderating the debate?

Hosted by CBS News, the debate will be moderated by CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, the moderator of the network’s Face the Nation programme.

What are the debate rules?

Like the presidential debates in the 2024 election cycle, there won’t be an audience for the vice presidential debate.

“Candidates, who cannot bring pre-written notes or props on stage, will have two minutes to answer a question and two minutes to respond. They will be allowed one minute for rebuttals. At moderators’ discretion, candidates may get an additional minute to continue a discussion,” CBS News has explained.

The candidates’ microphones will not be muted when their opponent is speaking, but the network said it “reserves the right” to turn them off.

Who are the VP candidates?

On the Republican side, 40-year-old Vance first garnered national attention with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which detailed the challenges he faced growing up in the US’s Appalachia region.

A Yale Law School graduate, he was elected to the US Senate in 2022 and has become one of the staunchest champions of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda, particularly on trade, foreign policy and immigration.

Vance has drawn some negative media attention since accepting to be Trump’s running mate, notably for his disparaging remarks about women who do not have children, as well as for spreading a false rumour about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating people’s pets.

On the Democratic side, Walz has been embraced for his folksy demeanour and social policies.

A US military veteran and former teacher, he was first elected governor of Minnesota in 2018 and won a second term four years later. Prior to that, Walz served in the US House of Representatives for 12 years, representing a largely rural district in southern Minnesota.

Over the past six years as governor, he has approved programmes that would cover college tuition for low-income students, implemented free breakfast and lunch at public schools, legalised recreational marijuana for adults and expanded protections for workers. The Trump campaign has described him as a “dangerously liberal extremist” for his progressive policies.

Kamala Harris calls anyone a racist if they complain about her open border.

You're not a bad person for wanting to stop the flow of mass illegal immigration and deadly fentanyl.

Americans who want a secure border have nothing to be ashamed of, but Kamala Harris sure does. pic.twitter.com/dztz9fy1Go

— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 23, 2024

What issues are likely to be discussed?

Like last month’s presidential debate between Harris and Trump, their running-mates are likely to be asked about key issues that matter to Americans such as immigration and the economy, among others.

Democrats have sought to paint the Trump-Vance ticket as a threat to democracy while also dubbing the pair as “weird”. Debate-watchers could see Walz repeating this line of attack on Tuesday.

For his part, Vance has adopted Trump’s hardline stance on immigration and accused Harris and her Democratic Party of adopting an “open border” policy. He is likely to continue to zero in on immigration during the debate.

Access to abortion is also likely to come up, as Vance and Trump have been questioned repeatedly during the campaign about whether they would back a national ban on the procedure if elected.

What effect could the debate have?

Generally, debates do not have much of an impact on how people will vote.

But with more than 67 million people tuning into September’s presidential showdown between Trump and Harris, debates do provide an opportunity for candidates to sell themselves to the public.

Still, vice-presidential debates are largely seen as less of a draw than presidential ones, and therefore, fewer people tune in.

“In most years since 1976, when the candidates for vice president first had their own debate, the running mates have been runners-up when it comes to viewership,” according to the Pew Research Center.

It noted that in 2020, just under 58 million people watched the debate between vice presidential candidates Mike Pence and Kamala Harris – 8 percent less than the lowest-rated debate between Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden that year.

Still, a knock-out performance – or a poor one – will draw widespread media attention, dominating the US news cycle as the election race heats up.

How can you watch the debate?

The debate will be broadcast on CBS. It will also be livestreamed on the network’s platforms as well as by other US media outlets.