Harris and Pence meet for a duel – watch the debate now

This year’s election is special: There is an unusually high probability that the vice president will have to move into the White House.

At 3 am Thursday through Thursday, Vice President and Republican Mike Pence and Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris meet for a debate in Utah. Debate is one of the rituals of US election campaigns. As a rule, the only tension is related to whether one of the candidates says something really stupid.

This year’s debate is different. On November 3, the choice is between Donald Trump, 74, and Joe Biden, 77. Trump’s stay in the hospital raises new questions about whether his health is good enough for four new years. Trump himself has had the strategy of giving the impression that Biden is already senile.

In other words, the danger that the vice president will have to take office for the next four years is much greater than usual.

Kamala Harris, used to be the first

Kamala Harris has a chance to show who she is. You must be prepared to explain how she, who attacked Biden during the nomination elections, will now stand behind everything he stands for.

Joe Biden promised up front that he would run for a vice president if he won the Democratic nomination. When the country was rocked by race riots in early summer, it was also clear that she should be colored.

The Democrats had several good candidates, but no one was very surprised when Biden pointed to Kamala Harris (55). She is a senator from California and has extensive experience in the state’s justice policy.

With a mother from India and a father who is descended from slaves in Jamaica, she has a background that fits the wishes of the Democratic Party in 2020. That her father is not from a slave plantation in the southern states of the United States means that she is not called African American.

She is the first black candidate for the vice presidency and the first of Indian descent.

Unexpectedly, political opponents have played the race card against him. Doubts arose as to whether she was really qualified to run for vice president. You have to be born a US citizen to be president. It’s like an echo of Donald Trump’s claims that Barack Obama wasn’t really born in the United States.

In 2019, she announced her ambition to become president, after just two years as a senator. His election campaign seemed to start off very well. He was scored early with heavy attacks on Joe Biden. On climate policy in particular, he is in favor of a more radical policy.

But the air left the balloon after the first debates.

On the left side of the party, they wondered if she was too conservative.

During the nomination campaign, the judicial system came into focus, criticizing both the level of punishment and discrimination. He had to answer for years as a state attorney and judicial policy at his home in California. Then he went to receive harsh punishments. He once objected to DNA testing on a death row inmate. He struggled to defend himself when these issues arose.

In the debate against Mike Pence, you should expect to have to defend that suddenly turns things around, where he marked distance from Biden less than a year ago.

Pence must defend Trump and the last four years

The biggest tension when it comes to Vice President Mike Pence is what he has to say about President Trump’s handling of the crown pandemic. You must defend the president who says that covid-19 is nothing to fear. At the same time, it is expected to show understanding for the families of the 210,000 Americans who have died so far.

Many will also try to interpret what it says about the president’s own health.

On the surface at least, Pence has been modest and loyal. He is popular with Trump’s main voters. But if you’re going to use the debate to prepare for your own election campaign in 2024, it could create problems. He also has to take care of something.

Won the debate before it started

Mike Pence has some experience with this type of discussion. Four years ago, he met Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine. The only memorable thing about that debate was that the Republican Party published an article saying that Pence won the debate, an hour before a single word was said. The party declared that Pence was the best in economics and that it shed light on the “Hillary scandals.”

Republicans removed the article when they realized the mistake, according to vice.com.

The two drew 37 million viewers. That was 44 percent less than those who watched the less established debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

The only time a meeting between the vice presidential candidates drew more viewers than the main characters was in 2008. At that time, then-Vice President Joe Biden and the Governor of Alaska met Sarah Palin. The thrill was knowing if the stranger Palin would say something terribly stupid. They were disappointed, according to Politico.

Biden’s most important task was not to appear superior when meeting the relatively inexperienced woman. It also worked out well.

In that sense, it was a boring debate.

For both Pence and Harris, this week’s debate is important in terms of establishing themselves as presidential candidates in 2024.

They must combine loyalty to Trump and Biden, respectively, while standing out as independent politicians.