Unlike Donald Trump’s debates with Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris, both vice presidential candidates refrained from making personal attacks on each other.
There are only five weeks left before the US presidential election. On the evening of October 2, a debate of candidates for US vice president took place in New York: Democrat Tim Walz (he is running with Kamala Harris) and Republican JD Vance (he was chosen as his running mate by Donald Trump ). Unlike Donald Trump’s debates with Joe Biden and then with Kamala Harris, both candidates avoided personal attacks on each other and had a relatively meaningful discussion.
Fight for SAmidwest
The vice presidential debate is not the most important event of the election cycle, one that interests politicians and journalists more than ordinary Americans. But any event weighs when the outcome of the election remains unpredictable.
Recent polls show the candidates are neck and neck in key swing states. Harris’ formal advantage is so small that some pollsters call it a static bias.
The main swing states whose votes could decide the election, especially Wisconsin and Michigan, are in the Midwest, known as the Heartland.
This region consists of 12 states with a population of about 70 million people, and it is very politically diverse. It contains outposts of extreme conservatism and centers of left-liberal America.
This region, the most important for the outcome of the elections, is represented by both the vice presidential candidates, formally and symbolically.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is a school teacher and football coach. He is 60 years old and has lived mostly in rural areas and small towns. In the Democratic campaign, her role will be to woo white voters in conservative and rural parts of the country who are reluctant to vote for Trump but also have doubts about Harris, a Jamaican-Indian woman from the ultra-liberal California.
The junior senator from Ohio, 40-year-old James David Vance, who prefers the initials JD, is best known as the author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy. It’s a portrait of his hometown in Ohio as a place plagued by poverty, violence, drug addiction and parasitism. The book was published in 2016 and became a bestseller.
What they talked about
The only foreign policy issue relates to support for Israel in its fight against Iran. There is no significant difference on this issue: both candidates support Israel. Russia’s war in Ukraine was not discussed.
Walz agreed that there were problems identified by Vance, but offered other solutions to them. The Democratic candidate is confident and outspoken on abortion, one of the biggest strengths of the Harris campaign. Pollsters say there are pockets of voters, especially women, who are closer to Trump’s platform on the economy and immigration but are wary of talk of a complete federal ban on abortion.
In the debate with Harris, Trump did not clearly define his position in response to this question. Vance supported a complete abortion ban before running for vice president, but this page has since been removed from his website.
Vance said Tuesday night that a second Trump administration would not support such a ban. And Trump, in his favorite genre of live broadcast commentary, raised this issue and wrote that he would veto the ban if Congress passed it.
Indicator of politeness
In recent months, both Walz and Vance have publicly attacked each other and made offensive nicknames. Walz called his Republican opponent “weird,” and Vance accused the Democrat of lying about his involvement in the Iraq War.
None of these are mentioned. On the contrary, they emphasized that they saw a number of problems in the same way, but differed in the recipes for solving them.
In his closing remarks, Vance said he will pray for Walz if he becomes vice president. In two hours, they shook hands three times – backstage, at the start of the debate and after it. When the broadcast ended, the two politicians stepped away from the microphone and talked for a while, patting each other on the shoulder and laughing.
The stark contrast in the Trump-Harris debate can be traced to the backgrounds of Walz and Vance—after all, the Midwest is known for its extreme civility.
It can also speak about their personal ambitions. The role of the vice president in the shadow of the real leader, without significant authority and influence in decision-making, is not worth burning bridges. Especially if America faces its next election in four years and one month.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.