As one of the tightest presidential elections in modern history rolls on toward Election Day, Vice Presidential candidates Senator JD Vance of Ohio (R) and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) are set to debate on Tuesday in New York.
State of the race
According to Five Thirty Eight, Vice President Kamala Harris currently leads former President Donald Trump in an average of the national polls, 48.4 percent to 45.7 percent. However, a new NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll did offer a warning sign for Democrats, as Harris’ advantage over Trump with Latino voters represents the Democratic Party’s lowest mark in the last four presidential cycles.
Ahead of Tuesday’s Vice Presidential debate, Vance has dropped to a new low when it comes to his own favorable and unfavorable polling according to Five Thirty Eight, with 45.7 percent viewing the Ohio senator unfavorably compared to just 34.7 percent of those polled viewing Vance favorably. Walz, on the other hand, enters the debate with 40.1 percent of those polled viewing the Minnesota governor favorably, according to Five Thirty Eight, compared to 36.4 who view him unfavorably.
How to watch
Tuesday’s debate will be hosted by CBS News and take place at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City. The debate will begin at 9 p.m. ET and will be moderated by CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan. The debate is expected to last 90 minutes, and will be televised on CBS, the CBS 24/7 streaming platform, Paramount+ as well as being simulcast on several other networks across the television dial.
Debate details
As with last month’s presidential debate between Harris and Trump, there will be no audience. Per the rules outlined by CBS News, there will be no opening statements and each candidate will have two minutes to answer a question, with the other candidate allocated two minutes to respond. After that, each candidate will have one minute for additional rebuttals with the moderators having the discretion to give candidates an additional minute each to continue a topic. CBS News noted that it does reserve the right to mute the candidates’ mics.
This may become more important than you would think as CBS News announced that its moderators will NOT fact check the candidates during the debate and it will instead fall upon the candidates themselves to fact check each other. The concept of fact checking became an issue following last month’s presidential debate, as Republicans decried ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis for fact checking Trump several times.
As such, this debate could get spicy. Although perhaps that will not be an outlier, as CBS Sunday Morning previewed the debate by looking back at the history of VP debates this past weekend.
To close things out, each candidate will be allowed two minutes for closing statements, with Vance going second and having the final word after winning a coin toss.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 5.
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