Vice presidential debates are typically a lot less interesting than presidential ones. Despite the pundit buzz surrounding the veepstakes, VP candidates rarely sway voters, and it follows from that historical pattern that vice presidential debates are unlikely to be consequential. They’re low-stakes affairs that feature candidates tasked with playing a supporting role: The candidates are meant to act as defenders or attack dogs on behalf of their running mates, and they don’t usually announce policies or break new ground politically. The bar for a solid performance is avoiding any gaffes.
But Tuesday’s vice presidential debate is going to be different. The presidential race has unfolded unconventionally, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ surprise last-second nomination. She is still filling in a number of gaps in the public’s perceptions of her agenda, and for this reason, her VP pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, could play an outsize role in shaping how undecided voters perceive the Democratic presidential ticket. The quality of Walz’s performance could conceivably determine some voters’ decisions on whether they trust the Democrats on the top-tier issue of economic policy — or even just on the level of “vibes.”
In the clash of the populisms, Walz has the advantage.
But the exceptional importance of this debate goes beyond the time crunch that Harris and Walz face in introducing themselves to voters before Election Day. Both Walz and his opponent, Republican Sen. JD Vance, occupy unusually influential roles on their tickets. In particular, both are at the leading edge of their respective parties’ ongoing experiments in populism, and they have taken a muscular role in shaping the communications strategies of their campaigns. Walz has played a formative role in the Harris campaign’s efforts to frame the Democrats as joyful normies and to depict Republicans as “weird” extremists. Vance, meanwhile, has been doing a striking amount of heavy lifting on the ground for Trump, establishing new Trumpian theories in defense of lying and charting new territory in denigrating migrants and women by putting nativism and social traditionalism front and center in the race.
Follow live updates covering the 2024 vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz.
In the clash of the populisms, Walz has the advantage. He is well positioned to poke holes in the ruse of right-wing populism and to make Vance look like a phony. Walz should lean into those differences as hard as he can if he wants to have a chance at leaving a lasting mark.
At a stylistic level, populism comes to Walz naturally. He grew up in rural Nebraska, he served in the Army National Guard, he only attended state schools, and he was a teacher and a football coach before getting into politics. He is the first person on a Democratic presidential ticket in about half a century not to have attended law school. He organically exudes the “everyman” affect that many politicians strive desperately for but rarely achieve. His comfort with his identity as a regular dude is what helped him stick the “weird” put-down that transformed the Democratic Party’s comms strategy overnight and has continued to vex MAGA ever since. And his natural ease with people underpins the Harris campaign’s emphasis on documenting the quotidian details of life on the campaign trail.
On the other side, Vance also comes from a working-class background and served in the military. But his life eventually went down a more conventionally elite path: He attended Yale law school, went into venture capital, and then parlayed punditry and relationships with Silicon Valley billionaires into a vice presidential candidacy. Vance’s journey also involved a swift and opportunistic political transformation, during which he went in just a handful of years from denouncing Trump as “cultural heroin” to stumping as a MAGA zealot. Vance is intelligent, but during unscripted public appearances he does not appear as comfortable in his own skin as Walz does, perhaps in part because he has chosen to reinvent his political worldview to secure access to power. He also simply seems to lack the people skills that are deployed so deftly by his counterpart. (This may also explain in part why Walz’s favorability among registered voters is much higher than Vance’s.)
To take down Vance at the debate, Walz has plenty to work with. Walz can argue that his own record — a life of public service — demonstrates a more reliable commitment to the people than palling around with tech tycoons and a scam-addicted billionaire politician. Walz can nail Vance for his massive flip-flops on his positions on Trump. Walz can continue to point out how right-wing populism uses culture wars to obscure their encroachment on Americans’ civil liberties and the restructuring of the economy to benefit the rich. Walz can wield his record supporting unions and helping pass sweeping social policies in Minnesota, such as the biggest child tax credit in the nation, to demonstrate his commitment to the people, which contrasts with Vance’s mostly shallow posturing in support of organized labor and devotion to protecting corporate interests.
I can’t predict who will be better received by voters at Tuesday’s debate or who will land the zingers that echo across the internet the next day. But Walz’s career and political sensibilities have primed him to be a strong foil against the false populism of the right. He has all the tools in his hand — he just needs to use them.