Political adviser Dan Pfeiffer said tonight’s debate may hold more weight than the 2020 vice presidential debate.
“The vice presidential debate is mostly spectacle,” Pfeiffer wrote in his newsletter. “Undecided voters won’t tune in and frankly, it rarely makes an impact. Other than the ubiquitous fly, do you remember anything about the Harris-Pence debate in 2020?”
Pfeiffer, who was the senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, said tonight’s debate between Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator JD Vance might “not be a game changer, but it could make an impact with persuadable voters in a historically close race.”
Tonight’s debate will take place in New York City and be moderated by CBS‘ Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan. The vice presidential nominees will each have two minutes to answer questions, with the opponent having the same amount of time to respond. According to CBS, the candidates will not receive the topics or the questions in advance.
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Pfeiffer said this may lead to a “fun watch.”
“Tim Walz is great. He’s smart and charming with a biting wit; and who could forget the couch joke from his first event with Kamala Harris?” Pfeiffer wrote. “Plus, J.D. Vance is equal parts odious, obsequious, and annoying. He’s a man too awkward to order a donut.”
Independent journalist Judd Legum wrote in his “Popular Information” newsletter that tonight could be “one of the most important political events of the year.”
Political commentator Robert Reich said on his Substack blog that the most crucial part of the debate is to “listen carefully to Vance.”
“Tonight, JD Vance will almost certainly try to out-Trump Trump, setting himself up to be Trump’s heir and likely Republican presidential candidate four years from now,” Reich said.
Reich suggested that Vance will sound similar to former President Richard Nixon “because it was Nixon who first began peeling blue-collar workers away from the Democratic Party.”
A lot is riding on the senator’s performance. After former President Donald Trump‘s first and only debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, almost all audiences judged Harris to have won, giving her campaign fresh momentum.
With many viewing the VP debate as the follow-up to that encounter, Vance will need to reassure any voters disappointed in Trump’s performance while also staving off Walz’s well-defined attack lines on abortion.
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Vance may be called on to address the “weird” attacks that Walz popularized, which could be tricky in person.
His past comments on “crazy cat ladies,” referenced in Taylor Swift‘s decision to endorse the Harris campaign, may also be brought up. Vance has distanced himself from the comments since becoming the vice presidential nominee, but with Walz onstage, it might be harder for him to explain what he meant.
“Tim Walz is the luckiest man in America because he gets to confront one of America’s most reprehensible men tonight on behalf of decent people everywhere,” political strategist Steve Schmidt said in his newsletter. “He gets to face down a con man, liar and fraud whose extremism and strangeness has made him a national punchline.”
Schmidt suggested Walz needs to call Vance out tonight “directly, relentlessly and brutally.”
“He should treat him with the contempt he deserves, and handle him like the malignant clown he is. Tonight is about humiliating someone who deserves the mockery and disdain he receives,” he said.
