Heading into the vice presidential debate spotlight, Tim Walz is fighting nerves

Tim Walz is telling people he’s just as nervous about facing JD Vance on the debate stage as he was when he first warned Kamala Harris he was a bad debater.

Tim Walz is telling people he’s just as nervous about facing JD Vance as he was the Sunday afternoon in August when he warned Kamala Harris in his running mate interview that he was a bad debater. Maybe more nervous, according to multiple people who’ve spoken to him. And the pressure is even higher, when for the first time in modern campaign history, the vice presidential debate Tuesday is likely to be the last marquee event before Election Day. With many voters still saying they don’t know enough about Harris, it could be up to Walz to help convince them to trust a vice president he barely knew himself before she picked him. Talking to the aides who have coalesced around him in Minnesota and other supporters, Walz constantly comes back to how worried he is about letting Harris down, according to close to a dozen top campaign staffers and others who have been in touch with the governor and his team. He doesn’t want Donald Trump to win. He doesn’t want Harris to think she made the wrong choice. He feels genuine contempt for and confusion over what he views as Vance’s abandonment of their common roots, and for flipping so many of his positions to fit with Trump. The digs he takes at Vance by saying he didn’t know many Midwesterners who went to Yale are a glimpse into his anxiety that his opponent learned to be a sharp debater there, according to people who know Walz. And aides insist this isn’t just about setting expectations.