What differentiates Vance and Walz
USA is facing a “highly dramatic” duel between the running mate candidates
September 30, 2024, 7:40 a.m
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It is likely to be the last TV duel in the US election campaign: Vice candidates Walz and Vance will meet on Tuesday. While the Democrat is seen as a representative of the center, his opponent is known for his sharp attacks on political opponents. A particularly heated battle of words is expected.
In the US presidential election campaign, the running mate candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz will compete against each other in their TV duel on Tuesday – and the edgy characters of the two mean that a fierce battle of speeches can be expected. Both the Republican senator from Ohio and the Democratic governor from Minnesota can dish it out well. They are bitter rivals simply because they have the same mission: convincing white working-class voters who feel left behind.
Their approach is as fundamentally different as their nature: 40-year-old Vance uses sharp rhetoric, launches violent attacks on his political opponents and paints a bleak picture of a country threatened by failed economic and immigration policies that will collapse if Donald Trump doesn’t win the election.
The 60-year-old Walz comes across more as a friendly older gentleman who has good news to share: the middle class will be strengthened by fair tax policies and more equal opportunities will overcome hatred and division if Kamala Harris wins the election. Vance, the scion of a poor working-class family from Ohio, described the consequences of industrial decline in the “rust belt” region in his autobiographical book “Hillbilly Elegy,” which made him suddenly famous in 2016. He is considered a turncoat: While he was initially a sharp critic of Trump, he turned into an ardent admirer of the Republican when it came to winning the Senate election in Ohio in 2022.
The Tale of the Pet-Eating Migrants
Walz is likely to attack him, among other things, for denigrating top Democratic politicians who, like Harris, have no children of their own, as “childless cat women” who are miserable with their lives. His racist tall tale about migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, is also likely to come up.
Walz, a former teacher and football coach, comes from Minnesota, whose residents are said to be particularly polite and humble. Until recently, he was still a nobody, but then coined the catchphrase “weird” for Trump and Vance, which helped him rise quickly in the Harris team. As a representative of the Midwest, he should help win swing states in his region that may be crucial for the election outcome.
In Minnesota, he campaigned for better workers’ rights, stricter gun laws, abortion rights and climate protection – all positions that, in Vance’s view, justify the label of a “Marxist” and “radical left” that the Trump campaign team also attached to Harris. Vance, who served in the Iraq War, is also likely to accuse Walz of inflating his military merits as a member of the National Guard.
Probably the last TV duel before the election
Millions of US citizens will watch the showdown on their screens on Tuesday (9 p.m. local time, 3 a.m. CEST). Unlike the Trump-Harris debate on September 10th, the microphones will generally remain switched on during the TV duel hosted by CBS – so interrupting is allowed, which is likely to fuel the debate considerably.
The TV duels between the vice candidates are not given the same importance as those between the bosses. But it is likely to be the last TV debate of the election campaign, as Trump rejects a second meeting with Harris on television. And no one can afford to make a mistake; the race for the White House is too close.
“Highly dramatic – I think that’s what Americans want to see, and they might actually get it on Tuesday,” says Thomas Whalen of Boston University. “Americans are fascinated by confrontation, and JD Vance and Walz are so different in personality and politics that it might be worth taking the time to watch.”
