Vance v. Walz: Who will win? 

The last big spectacle of the 2024 presidential campaign is on the horizon. On Tuesday, vice presidential nominees Tim Walz and JD Vance will face off in New York in a live debate that is likely to be the final time the two opposing campaigns will meet on stage.  

Once an undercard event, this cycle’s VP debate has taken on unusual importance for the dwindling number of undecided voters. It’s also the Trump campaign’s last, best opportunity to correct a month of serious political fumbles — even if it was Vance who caused many of Donald Trump’s worst headline headaches.  

The Harris and Trump campaigns are employing vastly different strategies on Tuesday because each side has very different goals. Here’s a sense of what you should expect tomorrow night, and how to know whether Walz and Vance are hitting their benchmarks as the night progresses. 

Walz: The man with the plans 

After leading campaigns that won him six terms in the House of Representatives and two terms as governor of Minnesota, Walz understands how debates work. We’ve also seen his ability to craft viral, sound-byte moments that resonate with the broader public, like his successful branding of Republicans as “weird.” Expect Walz to spend a lot of time talking right past his opponent and directly to viewers. 

Democrats hope to define the final weeks of the 2024 campaign as a referendum on competence. Expect Walz to drive that message home on Tuesday by talking directly to the American people about Kamala Harris’s plans — while reminding them that Republicans still have no plan at all. Walz’s success will depend on his discipline in ignoring attacks meant to drag him into cul-de-sac personal fights. 

Sidestepping Vance’s attempts to bait him into small skirmishes about his military service or other micro-scandals will be critical for Walz. The Harris campaign has proven most effective with voters when it moves beyond anti-Trump and anti-Vance attacks to tell a broader, positive story about America’s future. Harris employed the same strategy to great effect against Trump in their debate, where she repeatedly told viewers at home that Trump has “no plan for you.”  

It’s also a strategy the Trump campaign has no response to, thanks in large part to its complete lack of forward-looking plans for a second term. Trump admitted as much on the debate stage when he confessed to having only the “concepts of a plan” for health care despite a decade of big promises. Walz will be following the same strategy, baiting Vance into explaining how Trump’s nonexistent plans contrast with Harris’s. Good luck with that. 

Vance: Which JD shows up? 

Trump campaign insiders are rattled. This month saw scandal after scandal, from Trump spreading online hoaxes about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating cats to the former president palling around with white nationalist and controversy-magnet Laura Loomer. Now many Republicans are privately hoping that Vance’s debate can serve as a reset for the Trump campaign — refocusing the American public on Harris’s weaknesses. 

That will depend entirely on which Vance takes the stage on Tuesday night. Will Americans see the Vance who was once willing to question and criticize Trump’s excesses? Or will they see the Vance who has crusaded against childless women and who keeps advancing his many-times-debunked lie that Haitians in Ohio are eating people’s pets? One of those people appeals to the swing voters Trump needs to win. The other is now the most unpopular vice presidential nominee in history. 

Unlike Trump, who filled his debate prep sessions with right-wing Twitter trolls and conspiracy theorists, Vance’s team cuts a more mainstream profile. Trump stalwart Jason Miller has been overseeing the process, but the actual messaging work is being handled by one of Vance’s most trusted allies, Jacob Reses. That suggests viewers will see a less Trumpy version of Vance than the red-faced Trump impersonator we see at rallies. 

Still, Vance will be in the tough position of trying to sound reasonable while defending the GOP’s most extreme positions. Vance wants voters to view him as an author and intellectual with something real to add to the national conversation. That’s a tough sell when Vance will also need to defend his passion for spreading dangerous online hoaxes.  

Of the two, Walz has the easier job. It’s tough business to change voters’ perception of you once they’ve decided who you are, and Vance has staked out plenty of polarizing positions over the past few months.  

This year’s presidential debates have been historic by any measure. On Tuesday night, Walz and Vance will finally get their own shot at shaping history.  

Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.