Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) will meet Tuesday evening in New York for the vice presidential debate.

The 90-minute clash is set to begin at 9pm EDT. It will be hosted by CBS, and the moderators will be Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan.

There will be no live audience, much like the June debate between President Biden and former President Trump, and the September debate between Trump and Vice President Harris.

There will be at least one difference, however. On Tuesday, the microphone of the nonspeaking candidate will be muted only if CBS deems it necessary.

This year’s race is balanced on a knife edge, so any big moment for Vance or Walz could have real impact.

Here are five things to watch:

Will Vance be weird — or will he surpass modest expectations?

Trump chose Vance as his running mate when his campaign was at a high point.

Biden was reeling, but still in the race, after his disastrous debate performance; Trump was leading in the polls; and the former president had just narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

Vance has had a rocky road since then.

Past comments have stirred serious controversy — most notably his 2021 remark about left-leaning “childless cat ladies” running the country.

In addition, some of Vance’s interactions with voters have appeared stiff or wooden. And Trump has left his running mate out on a limb at times, as when the former president was asked in his debate with Harris about Vance’s assertion that Trump would veto a national abortion ban.

“Well, I didn’t discuss it with JD, in all fairness,” Trump said.

Meanwhile, Walz has used Vance’s pronouncements to fuel his insistence that Republicans are “weird.”

An Economist/YouGov........

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