LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Tonight, Ohio Senator JD Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will face off for the first and only time in the vice presidential debate.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Republican Vance and Democrat Walz both need to help their respective tickets win over undecided or perhaps indifferent voters in several crucial swing states, even as voting is already underway in parts of the country.
FADEL: NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to help us set up what tonight might look like. Good morning, Danielle.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hey, good morning.
FADEL: So let's start with the Republican candidate. What are you expecting from JD Vance?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, he's smart - he went to Yale Law School, after all - and he does a lot of interviews, and he isn't shy in those about arguing with his interviewers. So I imagine he might be an aggressive debater tonight. But he also does have some low favorability ratings to overcome, so we may well see him try to be as likable and approachable as possible. Now, in a call yesterday with the Trump campaign, reporters got a taste of what Vance might say tonight. They really emphasized that despite Walz's casual demeanor on the trail, he is still a longtime politician, and they also cast Walz as super liberal. Minnesota Representative Tom Emmer, who has been playing Walz in Vance's debate prep - he called Walz Gavin Newsom in a flannel shirt.
FADEL: OK. So what about Tim Walz? What should we expect there?
KURTZLEBEN: You know, we haven't heard as much from the Harris side about his debate prep, but a source familiar told my colleague Tamara Keith that they're really trying to let, quote, "the governor be the governor and let him stay true to who he is, not turn him into a slick debater like Vance." He's really the one, remember, who really popularized calling Vance and Trump weird and while casting Democrats as common sense. That's one of his big philosophies in this race.
FADEL: OK. I have to ask, though, how much this debate actually matters. As we point out, I mean, early voting has started in parts of the country. There's already been this big debate between Trump and Harris.
KURTZLEBEN: Right, yeah. I mean, vice presidential debates don't have a history of swinging polls meaningfully. Now, I'm not going to say that they don't matter, especially in a tight race like this. And also these two - either one would be a heartbeat from the presidency, as we say. I mean, generally, I think the idea of a vice presidential debate is first do no harm. These guys need to not make any big flubs and just sell the person at the top of the ticket.
The two things I would add is that, you know, this is a unique debate in some ways. Like you said, we've had one matchup, but it's only been one between Harris and Trump. We're not expecting another. So this is only going to be the second debate that voters are going to see. Besides that, you know, Harris has only been a candidate for two months, so Walz is defending a record that many voters might not even be very familiar with. And Vance, meanwhile, might be trying to make up for a presidential debate that went badly for Trump.
FADEL: OK. So tonight seems to not so much be about winning individually as it's about sticking to the presidential candidates' message. But both Vance and Walz are new to a lot of Americans. How much is tonight about the message versus the messenger?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, like you said, a lot of Americans are just getting to know these two guys, so people watching may well learn something new about them. Moreover, Walz and Vance are both the everyman halves of their respective tickets. Trump, after all, is a billionaire, and Kamala Harris has been well known as a politician for years. And moreover, she is something new in a presidential candidate - she's a woman of color. So both of these guys very much may try to just be as relatable as possible. That's something they do a lot, and I imagine that's what we'll see from them tonight.
FADEL: NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Thank you, Danielle.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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