JD Vance prepares to face Tim Walz in vice debate

In the final months of a crowded Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, JD Vance found himself caught in the middle of the pack.

He seemed severely harmed by a barrage of ads that portrayed him as an anti-MAGA, anti-Trump liberal from San Francisco. An advocacy group’s pollster warned that Vance’s campaign was in “precipitous decline,” arguing that he had failed to convince Republican voters of his conservative bona fides and loyalty to former President Donald Trump.

“Vance needs a course correction ASAP,” the researcher wrote in a February 2022 memo.

The change arrived a month later. With the top five primary candidates meeting on stage for the umpteenth time, the two leading candidates almost came to blows. As they came face to face, one prepared to fight while the other uttered a sexist expletive. Vance, sitting on the edge of the stage, attacked.

“Think about what you just saw. This guy wants to be a U.S. senator and he’s here: ‘Hold me. Hold me,’” Vance said, to loud applause. “What a joke. Answer the question. Stop playing around.”

It was a groundbreaking moment for Vance, one that prompted a second look from Republican voters in his state and from Trump, who was closely following the race but didn’t agree with the voices in his party urging him to get involved. Cuts to moments from the debate impressed Trump, sources told CNN and played an important role in Vance securing a defining endorsement of the former president.

“It was a big moment for the campaign,” said one person involved in Vance’s successful 2022 Senate bid, suggesting the episode demonstrated his talent for seizing decisive opportunities on a debate stage.

On Tuesday (1), this capacity will be tested once again. Vance, now the Republican nominee for vice president, will join his Democratic counterpart, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for the first time on a debate stage in New York.

Vance, just 40 years old and two years into his political career, is still a largely unproven commodity. It is also unknown whether he will be able to destroy the Democratic ticket and, at the same time, improve – or at least not further compromise – his favor among voters. And then there’s Vance’s other audience, Donald Trump, who often has his own parameters for a successful on-air performance.

The stakes of Vance’s face-to-face meeting with Walz are unusually high for a preliminary showdown and illustrative of the extremely close battle for the White House. Not only is Tuesday’s debate the only debate of the vice presidential campaign, it is also likely to be the last time voters will see the two tickets side by side on national television. Trump has suggested it is too late for another debate with Kamala Harris, including one proposed by CNN which the vice president agreed to, and there is also no further debate scheduled between Vance and Walz.

(On this, Vance broke with Trump and called for additional debates with Walz, arguing that “you should have to earn this job.”)

Vance has spent the past month engaged in intense preparation sessions, including a mock debate this week with House Majority Leader Tom Emmer, playing Walz. On Tuesday, the Ohio Republican downplayed those efforts, saying the campaign’s policies speak for themselves.

“We will focus on ensuring that I make as concise and direct an appeal to the American people as possible about the successful policies of Donald Trump and the failed policies of Kamala Harris,” Vance said.

Vance was chosen by Trump in part for this day. In the weeks leading up to Trump’s decision as running mate, the former president regularly commented to those around him on Vance’s television performance. It’s a skill that is deeply important to Trump, a skill that Vance first acquired in the Marines when he was assigned to the public affairs office. There, he learned to “speak clearly and confidently with TV cameras shoved in my face,” he wrote in his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Between touring to promote his book and launching a political career, Vance honed those skills. Some of Trump’s allies tried to influence his vice presidential pick by showing him clips of Vance’s television interviews, sources told CNN. After Trump picked the Ohio senator, aides said to CNN who were especially eager for a debate between Harris and Vance, insisting that their previous footage matched the vice president’s favorably.

This, of course, did not happen. Instead, when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Harris stepped in, Vance lost his opponent.

“I was told I was going to take Kamala Harris’ place and now President Trump is going to debate her?” he joked in July.

Vance’s role leads to combative interviews

Vance enters the debate against Walz in the final weeks of a tight race and after an uneven introduction to Americans, marred by resurfaced clips of him attacking childless adults and espousing strident anti-abortion views.

When Vance was chosen as Trump’s running mate in July, his favorability rating was minus six points, according to a poll by CNN with nearly four in 10 registered voters saying they were unsure about the Ohio Republican. Since then, opinions about Vance have become more defined, with a poll of CNN last week showing his net favorability has worsened, now 12 points below par, while about a quarter of registered voters said they were unsure how they felt about him.

Trump and his advisers insist they are not bothered by the United States’ view of Vance, saying that is in part due to the role he has been assigned. The campaign has pushed Vance into unfriendly territory, tasking him with defending Trump on air in interviews that are often combative, while also launching increasingly antagonistic attacks on the Harris-Walz ticket.

“He’s an attack dog,” said a senior adviser. “That’s part of the reason he was hired and that’s what he does well.”

Since choosing Vance, Trump has asked allies how they think he is doing, a source familiar with CNN . The senior adviser, however, dismissed the idea that the question meant anything about Trump’s opinion of his running mate.

“He does this to everyone. That’s how he talks,” said the advisor, joking that Trump had also asked about the advisor’s performance.

Vance’s regular clashes with reporters have earned him praise from conservative pundits and online personalities, but it’s unclear whether that approach will pay dividends with the broader public, who will be tuning in to Tuesday’s debate.

The counselors, however, say that these meetings sharpened their answers, as well as their mastery of the questions. Although Harris and Walz approached the press with extreme caution, Vance made a point of appearing approachable.

Since being chosen as Trump’s running mate, Vance has participated in dozens of interviews on television networks, from “Meet the Press” to Fox News, CNN and CBS’ “Face the Nation,” as well as extended sit-downs with Sirius XM’s “Megyn.” Kelly Show” and far-right personality Tucker Carlson. At his campaign events — of which there have been about 30 — Vance regularly answers questions from the press and will speak candidly with reporters traveling on his campaign plane between events.

“I have to believe that if we want to be the president of the American people, we must not be afraid of the friendly American media,” Vance said at a recent event in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Vance often answers questions with a friendly crowd behind him, who will boo reporters depending on their network or line of questioning and applaud the senator’s answers — a home-field advantage he won’t have at the CBS studio in New York. York on Tuesday. The debate will not have a live audience.

Vance’s daily practice talking to reporters freed him to study Walz, who his advisers consider a skilled speaker who should not be underestimated. The senator’s team has met in person at Vance’s Cincinnati home as well as on Zoom in recent weeks, focusing on helping him better understand Walz stylistically as well as familiarizing Vance with Walz’s background as a congressman and governor of Minnesota , the CNN previously reported.

During the campaign, however, Vance stopped attacking Walz — whom he regularly accused after the Minnesota governor became the Democratic vice presidential nominee — and instead focused his attacks more on Harris in recent events. I suggested he intends to take a similar approach on Tuesday.

“I’m going to use my debate opportunity to try to prosecute the case against Kamala Harris,” Vance told CNBC earlier this month, “because she will ultimately be president if the American people elect her.”

This content was originally published in JD Vance prepares to face Tim Walz in vice debate on the CNN Brasil website.

Source: CNN Brasil