U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio) speaks to reporters in the spin room after the CNN presidential debate in June 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Ohio’s freshman U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance will make his debate debut Tuesday night alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The former venture capitalist and author has had a number of missteps and stumbles since former President Donald Trump selected him as his running mate on the Republican ticket.

In less than two years in the Senate, he has become a well-known political figure in Ohio. But only one Democrat in the country has experience debating Vance on stage.

That’s Tim Ryan, the former congressman from the Youngstown area who defeated Vance after winning a seven-way Republican primary in 2022 thanks to Trump’s support.

“I think you’re going to see someone very aggressively trying to brand the Harris-Walz ticket as super extreme and outrageous. They will be blamed for everything and the world will end if they get elected,” Ryan said of Vance on the debate stage. “He will hit so hard because he only has one audience, and that is Donald Trump.”

Vance’s conversion from Trump critic to cheerleader is well documented, but his turnaround could still come up in the debate.

Ryan said some of Vance’s other controversial statements will likely surface as well, such as the false and racist rumors he repeats about legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield and his negative comments about childless women.

The debate will be an opportunity for both Vance and his Democratic opponent, Walz, to present their policy positions to the broader American public, as most people are less familiar with them than with their partners on the presidential ticket.

Vance in particular will have to overcome the lower preference scores.

“I don’t know if it’s who he really is or who he thinks he really is at this point,” Ryan said. “He’s really uncomfortable, and he also has really thin skin, so he can fly off the handle a little bit if you hit him in the right spot.”

Ryan added that Walz should be prepared to “fact-check him in real time” during the debate with Vance. CBS News, host of the debate, said it is up to the candidates to put forward inaccurate statements rather than rely on the moderators.

Appeal to the moderates

Ohio Republicans celebrated Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate. And Republican strategist Mark Weaver said Vance has appealed to moderates who may still be deciding.

“Republicans are energetic, and many independents have been impressed with his policy expertise and his eagerness to deftly answer all questions from the press during his campaign,” said Weaver, a consultant who has worked with a range of Republicans, local officials in Ohio to former President Ronald. Reagan.

Weaver said Vance has honed his communication skills in recent years through interviews and meetings. And no matter what happens in November, Weaver said Vance’s future is “completely blue – he will either be the vice president and chairman of the Senate or a first-term senator with a higher profile than his colleagues who serve in 2022 have been chosen.”

But there are Republicans who are frustrated with Trump. At least two Republican Party chairmen resigned following Trump’s 2020 election.

One of them walked all the way down the aisle.

“As a local Democratic chairman who came to the party after serving 20 years in local Republican government, my expectations for J.D. Vance on the debate stage couldn’t be lower,” said Chris Gibbs, who now leads the Democratic Party in Shelby County in the northwest of the country. Ohio.

Trump won that county with 81% of the vote in 2020.

“I predict Vance will spend 90 minutes confirming that the Republican Party’s core principles of diplomacy, statesmanship, personal responsibility and compassion have been all but eradicated by a once-serious party,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said that as a farmer who manages both crops and livestock, he wants to hear both candidates talk about immigration, trade, tariffs, biofuels and the Farm Bill, rather than personal attacks he expects Vance will launch against Walz.