Why the world is watching Walz-Vance debate
This reflects the increased status of the vice-presidency
TUESDAY’S (Oct 1) big vice-presidential debate, between Democratic Governor Tim Walz and Republican Senator JD Vance, may not be as consequential as June’s matchup between President Joe Biden and his predecessor in power Donald Trump. However, it could still affect November’s domestic ballot, and have wider international implications too in coming years, which is why the world is watching.
A longstanding, traditional view of the vice-presidential post is that it is wholly unimportant. John Nance Garner, who held the office from 1933 to 1941 under Franklin Roosevelt, asserted that “vice-presidents never get to go anywhere… the office is not worth a bucket of warm spit”.
However, the vice-presidential nominees in 2024 may be very significant, in historical terms. This is not least given the non-trivial possibility on the Republican side that Trump, if he wins, may die or become incapacitated during any second presidential term from 2025 to 2029 given his advanced age of 78. This is around two decades older than Vice-President Kamala Harris at 59.
Vice-presidents in history
History underlines the crucial role that vice-presidents, stepping up in the way that Vance might very well have to, have played at times of geopolitical tensions, as now from Ukraine to the Middle East. Harry Truman exemplifies this: he was vice-president from only January to April 1945 before assuming the presidency after Roosevelt died soon after winning his fourth election.
Within weeks of entering the top job, Truman made several highly consequential, controversial decisions, including the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He also attended that year the landmark Potsdam conference with the Soviet Union and the UK to decide how to administer the defeated Nazi Germany.
So the electoral stakes have grown – in the nuclear age – of not selecting a deputy who is perceived to be capable of assuming office effectively upon the incumbent’s unanticipated death or incapacity. Take the example of the 2008 election, when Republican nominee, the late John McCain, made the decision to select the much younger, one-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin who was – ultimately – widely viewed at the time as too gaffe-prone to become a heartbeat away from the presidency.
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Walz, 60, has significant experience as governor of Minnesota, and also served for more than a decade in the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC. There are few fundamental doubts he could effectively assume the top job.
However, the same may not be true for Vance, 40, who is a first-term senator from Ohio. Vance compares poorly to Trump’s choice in 2016 of then-governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, who, even many partisan opponents would concede, could have potentially assumed the presidency if the situation had warranted this. This is not least given his more than decade long experience, like Walz, in the House of Representatives.
Even if Trump, the oldest major party presidential candidate in US history, were to win again and survive another half decade, his energy could flag significantly as he moves into his 80s, just as it appears to have done for Biden since 2021 under the burden of office. So Trump’s running mate, Vance, would potentially wield significantly more influence in the White House from 2025 to 2029 than Pence did from 2017 to 2021, when he was largely sidelined.
More influence
There are further reasons why Vance, or indeed Walz, as vice-president could have significant influence in the next White House. Firstly, the post has assumed more power and resourcing in the post-war era with recent holders of the office, such as Biden, Dick Cheney and Al Gore, among the most influential in history.
Indeed, Cheney, who was a predominant voice in many of George W Bush’s presidential decisions, including the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, is widely viewed as the most powerful ever holder of the office.
During the 1990s, Gore also played a major role in US domestic and foreign policy too during the Clinton administration. A good example of his influence was the driving force role he played in the international negotiations in Japan, which led to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to help tackle climate change.
The power enjoyed by these three reflects, in significant part, their own strong experience and relationships with Barack Obama, Bush and Bill Clinton, respectively. It appears that Walz may have a similarly warm relationship with Harris, although whether Vance has the same strong rapport with the much more mercurial Trump is not so clear yet.
The influence of multiple, recent incumbents such as Biden, Cheney and Gore is, in part, a function of the increased status of the vice-presidency. This is reflected not only in larger staff budgets, but also closer location to the centre of power through a West Wing office in the White House; weekly one-on-one meetings with the president; and authority to attend all presidential meetings.
Secondly, the office has become perhaps the single best transitional step to the presidency, as Biden exemplifies. Even if Trump wins and survives till 2029, Vance could therefore be on a potential “fast track” to enter the Oval Office after the election in 2028, or potentially in the 2030s.
Since 1960, four sitting vice-presidents (Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968; Walter Mondale in 1984; and Gore in 2000) won their respective party’s presidential nomination, but then lost the election. Meanwhile, three vice-presidents have been elected president so far (Nixon in 1968, George HW Bush in 1988 and Biden in 2020), and it remains to be seen in November if Harris might be the fourth.
One reason vice-presidents have, in the post-war period, enjoyed particular success in securing their party’s presidential nomination relates to the 22nd Amendment in 1951. This constitutional change, brought in after Roosevelt’s four election wins, restricts presidents from serving more than two terms. Importantly, for vice-presidents such as Bush in 1988 and Harris in 2024, this allows for the possibility of organising a campaign in a sitting president’s term of office (in these cases, Ronald Reagan and Biden) without charges, from inside or outside his party, of disloyalty.
Taken together, this is why Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate really matters to the world, not only US audiences. The next office holder will not only have significant powers, but also if Trump wins, Vance stands a non-trivial chance of replacing him in office from death or incapacity between 2025 and 2029.
The writer is an associate at LSE Ideas at the London School of Economics
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