WASHINGTON - The stage is set for yet another American electoral tradition, the debate between a sitting vice president and his challenger in the upcoming November election.
But Wednesday night's match-up between Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris is promising to be all but traditional in the long line of political events which this year are not only upended by the coronavirus pandemic but also wrought with deep political division.
In any normal presidential election cycle, the vice-presidential debate is deemed secondary to a series of presidential candidate debates that usually generate the most memorable moments for voters.
But in the wake of 74-year-old U.S. President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis last week, and the highly cautious campaigning style of his Democratic challenger, 77-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden, voters may take a much closer look at their younger running mates who would be poised to succeed them if necessary.
Pence, 61, a former member of Congress and governor of Indiana, will take the stage in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the unique position of debating while Trump recuperates at the White House from a deadly, contagious virus.
Meanwhile Harris, 55, a former California attorney general seeking to become the first woman and first African American to become vice president, enters the spotlight amid concerns about the age of her ticket-mate.
"This year is different not only because of the coronavirus, not only because of the fact that we may not get another presidential debate, but also the fact that we have two septuagenarians at the top of the ticket,” said Todd Belt, director of the graduate political management program at George Washington University.
“We know that one in four presidents do not finish their term in office,” he added. “And that makes Vice President Pence and Senator Kamala Harris very important in terms to watch as they may be successors to these candidates.”
When Pence takes the debate stage at the University of Utah, he will be capping a week in which he assumed the bulk of campaigning duties while Trump was hospitalized for the coronavirus. Moreover, he intends to step up his appearances after the debate, despite the inherent risks of campaigning amid a pandemic.
"All of a sudden, you have a COVID-19 outbreak in the White House that impacts the president, puts him in the hospital, is forcing the American public to think deeper about the role of the vice president," says Capri Cafaro, executive in residence at American University School of Public Affairs.
That resets expectations for the vice-presidential debate after last week's presidential debate between Trump and Biden was widely criticized for its incessant squabbling and lack of substantive content.
While vice presidential debates often are viewed as the opportunity for the two campaigns to wage bruising attacks against each other, some political experts anticipate that Pence and Harris will represent the less-antagonistic sides of their tickets.
It’s also possible — but unlikely — that the Pence-Harris clash could also mark the last in-person debate of the presidential election cycle, if Trump is unable to take part in future scheduled debates in Miami and Nashville, Tennessee, because of his health. However, Trump insisted after being released Monday from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, that he was eager to take part in the next debate.
"It adds all the more weight and meaning to the debate, particularly for the Trump-Pence ticket, that needs to find a way to change the dynamics of this race," said William Howell, Professor in American Politics at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. "They're clearly sort of six, eight points behind. They need to do something to disrupt, to alter the dynamics of this race. This is not their last chance of doing so, but it's an important opportunity for them to do so.”
To do that, analysts say Pence likely will downplay his extensive government experience and conservative values, while championing Trump’s economic and social policies, and success in shifting the federal court system and the Supreme Court much further to the right.
Pence, who has chaired the White House coronavirus taskforce, will also try his best to defend Trump’s performance in combating the virus in the U.S., despite the more than 210,600 deaths and more than 7.4 million cases of infections, according to Johns Hopkins University figures.