Overshadowed by their running mates, the vice-presidential nominees will try to improve poll numbers, not make any missteps, and show they are up to the job

One describes himself as “boring”. The other admits he is a “B-list celebrity”. Tim Kaine and Mike Pence prepare to face off on Tuesday night in what could be one of the least consequential vice-presidential debates ever staged.

Mike Pence v Tim Kaine: what to know about the vice-presidential candidates Read more

Rarely have two running mates been so overshadowed by the candidates at the top of the ticket. Kaine and Pence will do their best to improve Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s historically low popularity, not make any distracting missteps, and show they are up to the job of being a heartbeat away from the presidency. Trump is 70, and Clinton turns 69 later this month.

“I’d actually forgotten it was happening until I got an email this morning,” admitted Lanhee Chen, a member of Mitt Romney’s debate prep team in 2012. “This debate is going to be much more predictable [than last week’s presidential clash]. I imagine Mike Pence will spend a lot of time on the Obama-Clinton record, and Kaine will spend a lot of time attacking Trump. They will be proxies for the wider issues of this election.”

Republican Pence, in particular, is under pressure to make an impact and change the narrative after a wretched week for Trump that began with what was widely seen as a thrashing by Clinton in the first debate and culminated with reports that he filed losses of $916m on his 1995 income tax returns, which could have allowed him to forgo paying taxes for nearly two decades.

Chen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, added: “It can cement the trend in the race, which is dramatically moving against Trump, or it can stem the tide. If Pence does well, he can stop the bleeding and set up Trump for Sunday night. If Pence is mediocre or is seen to have lost, it will be a long few weeks for Trump.”

I’d actually forgotten it was happening until I got an email this morning Lanhee Chen, member of Romney debate team

Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan, agreed. “After Clinton’s strong performance and Trump’s deflating performance, there is a lot of onus on Pence to right the ship,” he said. “I see a lot of parallels with 2012 when, after Barack Obama’s poor performance against Mitt Romney, there was a lot of pressure on Joe Biden, and he performed strongly.”

Biden’s rejection of Republican rival Paul Ryan’s budget math as “a bunch of malarkey” helped revive the Democratic campaign, and Obama was re-energised for the next two presidential debates against Romney.

Kaine and Pence are likely to be at ease in the spotlight during the 90-minute VP clash at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, moderated by Elaine Quijano of CBS News. Kaine, 58, is a former Harvard-taught trial lawyer who served as mayor, governor and now senator. Pence, 57, is a governor and former talk radio host, and he has in effect become Trump’s apologiser-in-chief during the election campaign, trying to persuade disaffected Republicans to tolerate the nominee and return to the fold.

But both men are also defiantly low-key. During his first solo campaign appearance in late July, Pence said: “I recognise I’m kind of a B-list Republican celebrity, so thank you for coming out tonight.” Kaine has called himself “boring”, although he has displayed a flair for the harmonica and speaking Spanish.

In a recent Associated Press-GfK poll, more than half of registered voters said they did not know enough about Kaine to offer an opinion about him, and about 44% said the same for Pence. Kall observed: “More than past VP debates, the attention in this will be at the top of the ticket. Kaine and Pence are just going to be conduits. I think they know that and will be prepared for that.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An official stands on stage during preparations for the vice-presidential debate at Longwood University. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

Kall has just watched online video of gubernatorial debates from 2012: four involving Kaine in Virginia and three featuring Pence in Indiana. His verdict: “Kaine came across as the more charismatic debater. Pence was solid and unflappable and never made a mistake, but his style left a little bit to be desired in terms of energising people and being watchable. Some of his gubernatorial performances in Indiana put you to sleep.

“Kaine has the perfect combination of substance and delivery. He comes across as affable with a smile on his face but he’s also like a pitbull attack dog armed with information. His style suits televised debate better: he’ll come across as more polished and with sunny optimism.”

George Ajjan, a Republican strategist, predicted that Kaine will seek to exploit differences betweenTrump and his running mate. “The question is whether Pence will be well-prepared enough to pivot the discussion back to policy, economics and the frustration of the everyman,” he said.

“If he succeeds in distilling the nuggets of clarity from Trump’s debate performance and explain them in his rational and calm way, he can come out the winner. But Kaine is no slouch and, in either case, the two presidential candidates are so larger-than-life that it’s hard to see this as a make-or-break moment for anyone.”

Shaun Bowler, a professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside, said: “Part of Pence’s job will be to shore up Trump’s credentials with evangelical voters. Kaine’s job will be to shore up Clinton’s appeal to Latino voters. Both are experienced politicians and so – famous last words – there may not be many fireworks.

“It is likely to be a more measured debate – even as they act as surrogates for their principals. But whatever they do there can only be a limited effect from these debates. There just can’t be many people left who do not have definite opinions on either of the presidential candidates, which means there just isn’t that much room for an effect.”

In Kaine’s mock debate rehearsals, the role of Pence is being played by Robert Barnett, a Washington lawyer. Pence, meanwhile, has held sessions with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker as a stand-in, avoiding the criticism that Trump faced for trying to wing it. But Kall observed: “In the Republican primaries, Scott Walker came across as the most boring debater of all time.”

Both Pence, a Christian evangelical, and Kaine, a Catholic former missionary, are likely to emphasise their religious faith. Kaine has sometimes found it hard to square with his political positions on abortion and the death penalty.

The senator from Virginia has said he is “thinking hard” about what Pence’s record says “about the guy who chose him, because it really is more about Donald Trump than it is about Governor Pence”.

Pence, for his part, “has been studying briefing books, and dossiers on his laptop”, the New York Times reported. “The Republican National Committee has also uploaded copious videos of Mr Kaine – everything from interviews to past debates – to an online file-sharing service for Mr Pence to view.”

Pence attended the first presidential debate in New York last week, whereas Kaine went to a watch party in Orlando, Florida. Predictably, both men claimed victory for their running mates. Kaine said Clinton’s showing “raised the bar”, adding wryly: “That puts pressure on me.”

Before flying to Wisconsin for two days of preparations with Walker, Pence said similarly: “Donald Trump raised the bar for his running mate.”

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But even in a normal year, the VP debate has only limited impact. By far the best-remembered line from any of them is Democrat Lloyd Bentsen’s 1988 putdown of Republican Dan Quayle: “You’re no Jack Kennedy.” But Rich Galen, former press secretary to Quayle, who was in the room that night, recalled: “People thought that was the end of the world and guess what, Bush and Quayle won.



“Vice-presidential debates don’t really matter much. It’s important for people to see who an emergency president might be, but I’ve never seen anything on any scale to suggest a VP debate affects voting behaviour.”

An online survey by ABC News and Social Science Research Solutions found that 41% of respondents could not name the Republicans’ vice-presidential nominee and 46% were unaware of the name of his Democratic counterpart.

