Clarifying Remaining Policy Questions Key for Presidential Race: What to Watch for in VP Debate

Vice presidential candidates, as you just heard, J.D. Vance and Tim Walz, set to debate next Tuesday. Vance is a relative newcomer to politics, holding his first elected position since just last year. Walz has been in politics for over a decade and a half. The two will also be standing during their debates with where VP candidates usually hold seated debates. To find out more, we talk with Mike Leon, Director of Policy and Strategy at the Free and Equal Elections Foundation and an NTD News contributor. Mike, before we get into politics, though, you're in Florida. How are you and everybody else doing down there after the hurricane? Well, I'm good. I'm in the southeast part of the state. But for people that live in the northwest part of the state, I hope everything is good with the hurricane up there as you head up the Naples, Tampa area and Sarasota. So all good so far. Glad to hear that for you. Okay, so what significance do you think this year's vice presidential debate holds for voters after having already seen two presidential debates? Well, I think, you know, early voting starting up very soon, Steph, obviously. So this is going to be the last chance as big of an audience that potentially these two have ever gotten in their lives in terms of viewership. You just heard there a moment ago about the VP debates in 2008 and how over 60 million people tuned into that in 2020, over 57 million people tuned into the Kamala Harris, Mike Pence debate. So big audience, right? A chance to finally make this final appeal. I expect both of them to champion, you know, the things that the Trump administration wants to institute from a policy perspective that J.D. Vance has been out there doing interviews about. He's done over 51 interviews with local national media press conference. So they clearly feel that he is a good messenger for this stuff. And then on the flip side, obviously, you mentioned before about Governor Walz, you know, he was a member of the House. This guy was formally endorsed by the NRA. This guy won red-leaning districts, you know, as a Democratic member of Congress. So it's going to be interesting to see the dynamics play out between the two of them. And I think we'll get a better nuanced conversation than we did in the presidential debate, which is funny enough. Yeah, that is very funny. And like you said, with Vance being pretty new to this, there are a few unknowns with this particular combination. So who do you think has a better chance of coming out on top from this debate? Well, I mean, it's always subjective, right, Steph, in terms of who does come out on top. I think both of them are going to hammer different key points that my co-host and I have talked about on the show and with other strategists. And we'll be doing something live as MTD will as well about the VP debate. But I think, you know, for J.D. Vance, he's going to hit about, you know, Tim Waltz lying about the military service. He's going to hit on, you know, Waltz's policy positions in the state of Minnesota as governor, some of the things that he's implemented. And then obviously, the Harris, the Biden-Harris administration, you know, continuing to associate Kamala Harris and her positions with President Biden, specifically foreign policy and what's playing out in the war in Gaza, specifically with Bidenomics, right. And I think on the flip side, you know, Tim Waltz is going to be somebody who's going to champion for Midwesterners everywhere. I think he's going to talk about his record in Congress, what he's done in the state of Minnesota with providing free lunches for public, you know, school kids that are attending public school and stuff like that. And those are things that have impacted lower class families. And I think that's going to be the conversation where the rubber meets the road. Who has the advantage? I think it's kind of a net right now. I think both campaigns have been smart in deploying both of these guys out there in terms of interviews because they're very good at media savvy. I'm interested to watch this, I think more than probably any VP debate prior. So what are some of the key questions that both candidates will need to address? Well, for me, I mean, I've mentioned this before, Steph, you know, it was a recent mass shooting that happened at a school, excuse me, a school shooting in Georgia. You know, I don't think we've gotten enough, you know, gun questions and gun control and gun reform questions that have been asked. You know, there's a there's at least so many school shootings that have happened over the last decade or so. And I think, you know, especially for Tim Walz, who was formerly endorsed by the NRA, who Kamala Harris and him have both said they're gun owners. I think there needs to be more of a conversation at national level, including presidential assassination attempts and how both of these folks were able to get access to weapons when both of them clearly have mental health issues. I think that's a larger conversation, Steph. But obviously, the Captain obvious questions will center around the economy, will center around immigration and border policy, will center around what a Harris-Waltz administration's policy positions will be around Israel in the Middle East versus what a Trump-Vance administration would do around the Middle East. And I also think we'll get an allusion to what took place in the presidential debate with respect to Springfield, Ohio, and this conversation that is almost nonsensical. I can't believe I'm even bringing it up, but about household pets being devoured. I think we need to get back to serious issues, because there are serious issues with respect to that story. There is an immigration crisis in a town that's overwhelmed and a system that can't handle this many people coming in. That's the bread of conversation, Steph, but it's not as sexy. Yeah, we did see some of that with the recent town hall with Ramaswamy. If anybody tuned into that, there was evident discomfort there among the people. People do seem more staunch supporters of their favorite candidate this year than in past elections. And even though polls saw Harris as the winner of her debate, it didn't affect her overall polling that much. How likely is the outcome of the VP debate to affect people's voting choices, do you think? Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up, because presidential debates on average don't tend to swing maybe more than a percentage or percentage and a half in terms of directionally and how it will affect the overall outcome come November. So VP debates, you could cut that in probably, right, Steph? They're adopting the policy positions of the number one in the job. So again, I don't think any of these things sway or change people's minds, ones that are fully entrenched. What I do think it does is create another content opportunity to use in a campaign ad to leverage across social media, digital platforms, to explain why you should get an opportunity to be the number one and two CEO and, you know, senior VP, quote unquote, of the United States. So I think, you know, the reason you do these debates, obviously, it's the core of American democracy to debate the issues, but there's no way you can encompass all of it in 90 minutes. So I think the real opportunity is try to drill into something that's specifically affecting millions of Americans for both of them as they're outlining this against the other person, drill into that and how you would affect change when you take office, because that is going to be the long tail effect of creating content like this and having this debate. Yeah, and hopefully they're not just sound bites. There's more substance to them, as you're saying. Now, you mentioned earlier, Vance has done a lot of interviews and actually among the four candidates currently, he's done by far the most interviews. We're talking 10 or 20 times more than Walzer Harris. Does this type of media presence help move the needle for the Trump ticket overall, do you think? Yeah, so Axios did this great piece recently about the media strategy of both candidates and how much media they've done. And J.D. Vance has done so much media from local, national and obviously podcast appearances and stuff like that. It's interesting, Steph, you know, I've had an AP News reporter talking about the Trump strategy to kind of go on different outlets. He went on Jake Paul and Logan Paul's podcast, Aiden Ross, Lex Friedman. And those are shows with, you know, millions of followers across different platforms and channels. Right. Whereas Vice President Harris and Tim Walz haven't done as much. You saw the Oprah interview, obviously the NABJ interview that Kamala Harris did recently. I know she did something local in Philadelphia with a Pennsylvania outlet there. So it's been a weirder strategy. My big thing has been because there are different interview styles and different questions that need to be asked and answered. I just gave you an example of gun reform and gun legislation and something that has impacted communities, especially in a swing state like Georgia, where this school shooting happened. We are not getting any questions being asked about. And it's because the limitations in terms of how many interviews you do and media appearances. So it was never a Republican or Democratic talking point. It's real simple. The media is a conduit to ask what the questions that voters want answered. Do more media. This isn't rocket science. You're running for the highest office in the land. You're trying to garner my vote. I need to hear more about why it is I should vote for you and need a direction. I think it's been interesting that the Trump advance has done more now. Some of the interviews haven't been that great for them, but at least they've done them. And I think Kamala Harris and Governor Walz need to do more, especially over these last few weeks before early voting really, truly kicks off. Yeah, the people really need a bit of information to properly make that decision. Thank you so much, Mike. Thanks, Steph.