Key events
Walz and Vance take to the stage
Tim Walz and JD Vance are on the stage at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City ahead the vice-presidential debate.
The pair were pictured shaking hands.
After tonight’s debate, Tim Walz is expected to head out on a bus through Pennsylvania with stops in Harrisburg, Reading and York, according to the Harris-Walz campaign.
Walz will be joined by John Fetterman, the Democratic senator for Pennsylvania.
The tour marks Walz’s second time campaigning in central Pennsylvania and fifth trip to the battleground state since he was tapped to serve as Kamala Harris’ running mate, the campaign said.
Robert Tait
JD Vance enters Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate with arguably more to gain.
Since his selection as Donald Trump’s running mate, Vance’s approval figures have been consistently in the negatives amid a string of disclosures over derogatory comments about childless women.
Vance has also drawn fire for his role in promoting a debunked rumour about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets, before later telling CNN – unapologetically – that he’s willing to “create” stories for the purpose of calling attention to “the suffering of the American people”.
Tim Walz, by contrast, has achieved more encouraging polling numbers yet has adopted a low-key posture since Kamala Harris chose him as her running mate.
He has given few media interviews and had settled for a lower profile following the acerbic attacks on Vance and other Maga Republicans that were first brought to national attention in the summer – and prompted Harris to select him.
Elise Stefanik, the Republican congresswoman for New York, spoke to reporters in the spin room ahead of the vice-presidential debate.
JD Vance will have the chance to speak directly to voters without the media picking and choosing what to focus on during tonight’s debate, Stefanik said, AP reported. She told reporters:
I think it’s an opportunity to speak directly to the American people.
In response to questions on the Ohio senator’s past comments about “childless cat ladies” and similar remarks, Stefanik said Vance has often talked about the important role of women in his life, including his grandmother and his highly accomplished wife.
Vance arrives at debate site
JD Vance arrived at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City shortly after Tim Walz, the network said.
Robert Tait
With Donald Trump continuing to refuse demands from Kamala Harris for a second presidential debate, much may ride on tonight’s clash between Tim Walz and JD Vance.
The 90-minute duel will have added piquancy after Walz memorably described Vance as “weird” while casting him as a key architect of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for a radical shake-up of American government and society that would crack down intensely on immigration, vanquish LGBTQ+ and abortion rights, diminish environmental protections, overhaul financial policy and take aggressive action against China.
Vance, who has reinvented himself as a political attack dog for Trump despite disparaging him before entering politics, has hit back by depicting his opponent as a far-left liberal and accusing him of serially misrepresenting aspects of his military service in the national guard.
He has also thrown the “weird” jibe back at Walz after the Democratic vice-presidential nominee said his children had been born with the help of IVF – which Vance once voted as a senator to oppose – before it emerged that he and his wife had used a different form of fertility treatment.
Ed Pilkington
The football coach and the “Yale law guy” go head-to-head in New York City on Tuesday night, as two midwesterners with very different styles and vastly diverging messages slug it out over the future of the US.
Apart from the economy, immigration and foreign wars, which are certain to be addressed during the debate, a more amorphous struggle is likely to play out on stage: who will own the mantle of “authentic midwesterner”? Will it be Nebraska-born Tim Walz, or the bestselling author of Hillbilly Elegy, Ohio’s JD Vance?
The rivalry goes beyond mere aesthetics or regional loyalties. It resonates heavily in those states where the election could be decided – the three so-called “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The candidates offer a diametrically opposed vision of the heartland. Walz’s midwest is folksy and homely, a world where neighbors look after each other, where football coaches double up as local heroes (Walz coached the sport at Mankato West high school from 1997), and where joy fills the air.
Vance’s is a much darker picture of drug addiction, broken families and the threat of immigration. His is the midwest of Trump’s “American carnage” dystopia.
Walz arrives at debate site
Tim Walz’s motorcade has arrived at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City, the network said.
Walz’s motorcade arrived at the debate site shortly after 8pm ET.
Joe Biden has posted a message of support for Tim Walz, writing: “Coach, I got your back tonight!”
The president said America will tonight see the “strong, principled, and effective” leader that he has known for years.
Coach, I got your back tonight!
Tonight, America will see the strong, principled, and effective leader I’ve known for years—and the contrast you and Kamala provide against the other team. pic.twitter.com/7ojASvwkjw
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 1, 2024
Tim Walz misleadingly claimed that he had been in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that led to hundreds of protesters being killed by the Chinese government, according to multiple reports.
The Democratic vice-presidential candidate frequently traveled to China as a teacher in the 1990s, leading trips of American high school students.
In a 2019 radio interview unearthed by CNN, Walz said he had been in Hong Kong on 4 June 1989, the day of the Tiananmen massacre.
Earlier, during a 2014 congressional hearing, Walz also suggested he had been in Hong Kong in May 1989. He testified: “As the events were unfolding, several of us went in. I still remember the train station in Hong Kong.”
The Associated Press further found a 2009 congressional transcript in which Walz appeared to insinuate that he had been in Hong Kong during the day of the massacre.
However, according to a Minnesota Public Radio report, Walz had been working in the National Guard Armory in Nebraska in May 1989. It also found a separate story from August 1989 that said Walz would “leave Sunday en route to China” and that he had nearly “given up” participating in the program after student revolts that summer in China.
What we know so far about the debate styles of Walz and Vance
Rachel Leingang
When Tim Walz and JD Vance square off as vice-presidential picks tonight, it will be the biggest debate stage for both of the politicians, who are newly becoming household names.
Walz and Vance have been honing their public-speaking skills – and their pointed barbs at each other – in TV appearances and at events around the country in the past few months.
Their experiences in electoral debates haven’t reached the levels or notoriety that come with a presidential campaign, but both have faced opponents in public debates in past elections.
And given the tightness of the presidential race, and how poorly the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump went, there will probably be more people tuned in to the vice-presidential debate than in past cycles.
While VP debates don’t usually tip the scales much, they could matter in a close race – and they build profiles for politicians who will probably stay on the national scene for years to come.
Read the full analysis here: What we know so far about JD Vance and Tim Walz’s debate styles
As we reported earlier, Tom Emmer, the Republican Minnesota representative and House majority whip, has been a stand-in for Tim Walz during debate prep with JD Vance.
Emmer said he spent weeks watching Walz’s previous debates in order to play him. He told CBS News:
My team and myself spent about a month going through every debate Tim Walz has ever done in the last 20 years. My job was to get not only his phraseology, his slogans down, but his mannerisms. We wanted to give JD the best facsimile impression of Tim Walz that we could.
He described Walz as an “excellent debater” who will come across on the debate stage as a “folksy” and “outdoorsman”-type guy, but said “there’s no substance after that”.
On a call with reporters on Monday, Emmer said it had been “tough” standing in for Walz “because he is really good on the debate stage”. He added:
He will stand there, and he lies with conviction, and he has these little mannerisms where it’s just hey, I’m the nice guy, but he’s not nice at all.
