Vance maintained a calm demeanor during a tense debate phase. Can he keep it up when he faces Walz?

Vance’s debate skills also caught the attention of Donald Trump, who supported him in his winning bid for the Senate in 2022 and chose him as his running mate in this year’s presidential election. Their first encounter offers a glimpse into how the Yale-educated senator might approach Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, where she meets Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. This is the only time the two are expected to meet during the campaign.

Vance is known for being knowledgeable, articulate, and even-tempered. Even his 2022 Democratic opponent, Tim Ryan, said, “He’s a smart guy.” He will bring a style honed through verbal jousting with a series of television reporters, but a style not unlike Trump’s.

Terry Casey, a Republican political consultant who regularly helps with GOP debate preparations in Ohio, said Vance and Trump are “night and day” when it comes to debates.

“He is a lawyer who likes to examine issues intellectually in a different way than Trump,” Casey said. “Trump both missed opportunities and took the bait when discussing Kamala Harris. “My guess is that when it comes to Vance, he won’t fall into these traps or neglect these opportunities.”

Vance said on a call with reporters this week that he didn’t feel any pressure to do “something similar” to the extensive debate preparations Walz has undertaken.

“I don’t think we need to prepare that much,” Vance said, because “we don’t need to hide our record from the American people.”

Vance nevertheless spent the past month reviewing debate plans, strategies and potential questions, according to a person familiar with his preparations who asked not to be named to discuss the strategy. In addition to online sessions, much of this work takes place at his home in Cincinnati; where his wife, Usha, and Trump campaign strategist Jason Miller met with members of Vance’s inner circle to prepare him.

As the team reviewed Walz’s past debate performances, U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who is the House majority whip, helped the Minnesota governor recite verses to Vance in his “plain” Midwestern style, the source said. Perhaps that’s not as compelling a case for Vance, an Ohio native with Appalachian roots familiar to many from the book and movie “Hillbilly Elegy,” as it might be for another candidate.

Vance enters the event with solid debate performances in 2022.

Such a performance in Cleveland raised his profile in Trump world and helped Vance earn the former president’s coveted endorsement.

Vance’s fall Democratic opponent, former 10-term congressman Ryan, said the senator’s fragility on Tuesday may have been because he was trying to put on a performance to please Trump.

“Obviously he has an audience of one, so that might also be his Achilles heel,” Ryan said. “Because Trump will want him to be aggressive, he will want him to try to portray Walz as someone who is extremely extreme and out of touch; I think that would be very difficult, given Walz’s appearance, his demeanor, his sense of humor, and everything else. .”

Ryan said he got into arguments with Vance by trying to highlight his past controversial statements, which could have caused Vance to “go off the rails a little bit.”

“Walz needs to be very aggressive about holding his feet to the fire and make JD really eat his own words,” he said.

The age difference between the two men (Walz is 60, Vance is 40) is evident on stage, Casey said, but a contrast also emerges in the debate experience. Walz honed his technique during his 12 years in Congress and two gubernatorial runs; Vance, on the other hand, was fiercely competitive but appeared in only one political campaign.

If history is any indication, viewers can expect Vance to criticize Tuesday’s moderators, CBS’ Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, as the debate continues. Since becoming Trump’s running mate, Vance has become the Trump campaign’s highest-profile attack dog and a fixture on weekend newscasts; here he frequently backs down to the hosts and calls them by name.

In a notable conversation with CNN’s Dana Bash on September 15, Vance signaled his determination to stick to the false story that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating people’s pets; these claims were denied but further amplified by both local officials and Ohio’s Republican governor. During Trump’s debate with Harris on September 10. Those statements were followed by more than 30 bomb threats, forcing the city to evacuate schools and government buildings, and some members of the Haitian community legally in the United States said they did not feel safe.

Vance insisted to Bash that his statements about immigrants eating pets were based on what voters told him. He attributed problems with crowded schools, hospitals and other services in Springfield to “Kamala Harris’ open border.”

Vance, who Bash disputed about the facts behind his claims, made no statement. Instead, he directly questioned Bash’s impartiality.

“Dana, do you want me to ask and answer questions, or do you want to argue with me about these issues?” he asked.

Vance’s strong pushback appears to have pleased Trump’s base. Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative activist group Turning Point USA, said in an interview this summer that such environments are Vance’s strong suit.

“I often say that J.D. Vance’s superpower is his ability to go into opposing media environments, be calm, cool and collected, and say very persuasive things without raising his voice,” Kirk said.

A person familiar with his preparations said Vance viewed the media briefings as excellent debate practice.

Kevin Parsneau, a political science professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, said it’s hard to find evidence that debates are very important under ordinary circumstances. He said even the 1988 vice presidential debate, in which Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen devastatingly told Republican Sen. Dan Quayle, “Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy,” did not change the outcome. Vice President George HW Bush nevertheless went on to win the presidency easily.

“But obviously the Biden-Trump debate was a big deal, and there may be some evidence that the Trump-Harris debate was a bit of a big deal,” Parsneau said. “Vice presidential debates generally don’t matter.”

But assuming this is the final debate of the 2024 campaign, “the margins are so slim that you don’t need to influence it too much,” he said.

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Staff writer Steve Karnowski contributed from Minneapolis.