Watch live: Tim Walz, JD Vance to face off in vice presidential debate
NEW YORK - The first vice presidential debate between Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance is set to kick off on Tuesday evening in New York, bringing together the two running mates who have spent months going after each other and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
The debate will offer a fresh opportunity for Walz, 60, and Vance, 40, to re-introduce themselves to the nation as each vouch for their bosses.
The matchup will be hosted by CBS News on Oct. 1 and will involve the biggest television and online audience either vice presidential candidate will see before Election Day.
Side-by-side image of Democrat Tim Walz (L) and Republican JD Vance (R) (Getty Images)
How to watch the debate
Beginning at 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, viewers can watch the debate on CBS News. The debate will air on their broadcast network live and will be livestreamed on all platforms where CBS News and Paramount+ are available.
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Abortion and family views
Both candidates will likely feature their views on abortion rights and family dynamics in America.
Walz has tried to capitalize already by mixing his story into the argument. The governor talks often about how he and his wife, Gwen, required fertility treatments to have their daughter. Democrats have excoriated Vance for his 2021 quip about "childless cat ladies" shaping American life. And Walz has been eager to echo Harris' emphasis on abortion rights as an anchor of her overall campaign theme: "Freedom."
Vance and Trump, on the other hand, have struggled for a consistent message on abortion rights — a reflection of how politically fraught the issue is for Republicans since support for abortion access has increased since the 2022 Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end a woman's constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.
Middle-American roots
As much as the debate is about Harris and Trump, the running mates got here in no small part because of their respective biographies.
Trump's choice was a play to further cement the GOP ticket as the choice for middle America. The author of the "Hillbilly Elegy" memoir who grew up in small-town Ohio, Vance has roots to match his economic populism in ways the billionaire Trump does not.
Walz and Harris both grew up middle class, but Walz remains firmly ensconced there, going from his boyhood on a Nebraska farm to the high school classrooms of Minnesota before he ran for office. It's both a juxtaposition with and reinforcement of Harris' story as the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father.
Both men have made their families part of their political identities. Each have working spouses. Walz has two children — young adult and teenage. Vance has three young children. The Walzes and Vances are more traditional political families than those of the presidential nominees: Harris has adult stepchildren from her decade-old marriage to Doug Emhoff; Trump has five children from three marriages.
Expect both running mates, even as they try to keep the spotlight on their bosses, to highlight their own stories.