Trump and Harris’ running mates face off in debate Tuesday | US elections 2024

US vice-presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance will face off Tuesday evening in a debate organized in New York by the channel CBS. The confrontation promises to be corrosive, in a tight race ahead of the presidential election in November.

Mr. Vance, Republican senator from Ohio and Donald Trump’s running mate, and Mr. Walz, Democratic governor of Minnesota and Kamala Harris’ running mate, were both chosen to appeal to the mostly white and working-class electorate in the north and south. central United States, where they originated.

However, JD Vance, 40, and Tim Walz, 20 years his senior, have radically opposed personalities and have already clashed through indirect statements, in a campaign with particularly acrimonious rhetoric.

The first shares with his mentor a taste for provocation and a tendency to free himself from the truth, while the second, a former teacher and American football coach, displays the image of an affable neighbor.

This contrast could produce a real television moment, even if such a debate between running mates rarely changes the national political dynamic, notes Thomas Whalen, professor of political science at Boston University.

A big show, I think that’s what the Americans are waiting for, and there could very well be one on Tuesdaydeclared the academic to Agence France-Presse.

Americans are fascinated by confrontation, and JD Vance and Tim Walz are so different – ​​their personalities, their political leanings – that it might be worth a look.

The face-off will be held Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern. He could be the last of the campaign: Donald Trump refused to debate again against Kamala Harris after their September 10 debate on CNNrather won by the Democrat according to observers.

Unlike CNN, CBS will not turn off one person’s microphones while the other is speaking, allowing opponents to cut each other off.

Controversies and nicknames

The pressure could be greater on the shoulders of JD Vance, less popular than Tim Walz in the polls.

Voice of declassified America with his bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy published in 2016, JD Vance has since experienced a meteoric political rise thanks to his unwavering loyalty to Donald Trump, until his appointment in mid-July.

His campaign has since been marked by several controversies.

The Ohio senator is thus 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 Ohio, a rumor later taken up by Donald Trump during the debate against Kamala Harris.

Officials there said there was no proof of the claim, but JD Vance said on the airwaves CNN on September 15 that he had heard first-hand accounts from his constituents and accused the media of ignoring immigration issues.

If I have to create stories to make the American media actually pay attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to dothen supported the Republican.

JD Vance is also the one who made fun of unhappy cat ladiesin reference to people choosing to live without a partner or child.

So many points of attack for Tim Walz, who called JD Vance and Donald Trump weirda dig that became a Democratic slogan.

Todd Graham, a debate professor at Southern Illinois University, says Mr. Walz will have one main task: continuing to say his opponent is too weird for the White House.

His opponent will above all try to demonstrate that he is not strange and that we can trust him, believes the professor.

Tim Walz, unknown to the general public before being chosen by the Democratic candidate in early August, has since sought to make his good nature and outspokenness known, which has been a success in the Democratic ranks.

But beyond this image of a man from the rural world, he passed numerous progressive measures in his state, which fuels his reputation as a Marxist for the Republicans.

JD Vance could also repeat on Tuesday his accusation that his rival left his National Guard unit just before it was sent to Iraq, calling into question his military courage.

Professor Graham believes that both will have three tasks in the debate: defend their presidential candidate, attack the other’s candidate and prove that they are capable of being the president if it comes to that.

During the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in early September, the latter provoked her opponent about the size of the crowds at his rallies and his 2020 defeat, leading him into tirades that distracted him from its objectives of the debate.

Mr. Vance is unlikely to fall into a similar scenario, said Aaron Kall, the director of debate at the University of Michigan. No matter what Walz tries to say, he won’t fall for it. He will stick to the problemshe predicts.

Links with Canada

Both vice presidential picks have a Canadian connection. Mr. Walz’s state shares an 885-kilometer border with Ontario and Manitoba. Recently, he played football with Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

For his part, Mr. Vance went to university with Jamil Jivani, the Conservative MP for Durham. Mr. Jivani called Vance his best friend at Yale and read a passage from the Bible at the American politician’s wedding.

Both parties have introduced policies that experts have called protectionist. Donald Trump has repeated his plan to impose 10% tariffs on imports and Mr Vance is a vocal opponent of US military aid to Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion.

Last week, Harris recalled that she was one of 10 U.S. senators to vote against the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement under the Trump administration, saying it was not enough to protect American workers. She said that if she becomes president, she will push for the trade deal to be revised in 2026.

With information from Agence France-Presse and La Presse Canadienne