Three things to watch in tonight’s vice-presidential debate

Good morning and welcome to US Election Countdown.

Let’s kick off October — and spooky season — with:

It’s debate night in America — probably the last one of the 2024 presidential election cycle.

Vice-presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz will take the stage at 9pm in New York City for the CBS News-hosted debate. Vance, with his lacklustre approval ratings, is the candidate who has the most to gain.

Here’s what to watch for during the match-up:

1. Can Vance remedy his image issues?

Vance has a likeability problem and, he’ll be eager to shore up his approval ratings — especially among women.

Walz is viewed more favourably in the Midwest battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as in Vance’s home state of Ohio, according to the latest NYT/Siena poll. Nationally, an Associated Press poll last week showed that 57 per cent of registered voters viewed Vance unfavourably compared with 32 per cent who disliked Walz.

Despite the numbers, political operatives are expecting a strong performance from the Ohio senator tonight.

“He’s a Yale Law [graduate], smart by all accounts, is pretty good on his feet, so he will probably be ready, and he’s doing a lot of work to get there,” ​​Matt Bennett, co-founder of centrist Democratic think-tank Third Way, told me. “He certainly isn’t going to perform the way Trump did,” referring to the ex-president’s debate performance last month.

2. Who will be the instigator?

One of Kamala Harris’s best tactics on the debate stage last month was baiting Donald Trump with his most sensitive issues. We can expect Walz and Vance to try to replicate her strategy.

“I would tell [Walz] to not take the bait,” said Bennett. “What his running mate did so brilliantly was get Trump to rise every single time . . . and Vance is going to try to do that to him. He’s going to say a bunch of things to get him to react, maybe criticise his military service or attack Harris in ways that are untrue or ridiculous.”

For Walz’s part, the Democratic vice-presidential pick might tell Vance he is “weird” to his face.

Both candidates have been preparing in earnest: US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg has played Vance in Walz’s practice sessions, while US representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota has acted as Walz in Vance’s run-throughs.

3. Will the debate move the dial?

There are few people who think that what happens tonight will be a poll-moving event, particularly since the headline face-off between Harris and Trump didn’t change much.

“No VP debate in history has ever really mattered,” ​ Bennett told me. Republican strategist Doug Heye agreed, noting that undecided voters focused on the fight at the top of the ticket would not change their vote based on tonight “barring something cataclysmic”.

But the stakes are still high for the veep candidates as they will have a big platform to pitch themselves to voters — and perhaps more importantly, their bosses

Campaign clips: the latest election headlines

Behind the scenes

In the swing state of Arizona on Friday Harris pledged a crackdown on illegal immigration, moving rightward from both Democrats’ traditional stance on the hot-button issue and even Biden’s tough stance.

“The United States is a sovereign nation and I believe we have the duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them,” she said. Her tougher rhetoric is part of an effort to narrow the polling gap on immigration, which has been one of Trump’s strongest issues throughout the race [free to read].

In the border town of Douglas, voters told the FT’s Myles McCormick that they liked seeing the vice-president and described how important border security was to the local population.

“I believe I would vote for her,” said Jennifer Valenzuela, a 28-year-old stay-at-home mother. “It just depends [on what she says about the border],” she added, noting “more security” would make her more likely to do so.

Linda Rojas, a 68-year-old who works from home, said she was also glad Harris visited. “I definitely think that she needs a tougher approach and just look at things and get a perspective as to how it is on the border and see [if] she can implement anything new.”

“I think one thing is seeing it and another thing is hearing about it,” said Sarah Foreman, 57, a caretaker.

Trump is leading Harris by 1.3 percentage points in Arizona, according to the FT’s poll tracker.

Datapoint

It’s hard to overstate the importance of Pennsylvania in this election.

With its whopping 20 electoral votes (the most of any swing state), the candidate who wins Pennsylvania would be considered the favourite to clinch the presidency.

Harris and Trump are both frequent visitors to the state, and have spent a combined $300mn on ads, more than anywhere else. Both parties are also rushing to sign up new voters — and Republicans are winning this race.

Pennsylvania is home to more registered Democrats than Republicans overall, but the gap has narrowed; the split was 51-37 in 2008, but is now 44-40.

Two weeks ago Republicans registered 12,615 new voters to the Democrats’ 7,940. A further 7,404 were registered as “unaffiliated” or with “other parties”, according to state data released last week.

Harris will almost certainly take Philadelphia County, which encompasses the eponymous city; Biden won it by 64 points in 2020. But the biggest question is whether enough people will turn out to vote in the county to win her the state.

Viewpoints