VP DEBATE TAKES ON OUTSIZE IMPORT
With Trump ailing, Pence becomes face of administration
President Donald Trump’s hospitalization with the coronavirus has catapulted this week’s vicepresidential debate into the spotlight to an extraordinary degree, putting pressure on Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris to use this forum to reassure an anxious public they are prepared and qualified to step in as president.
Trump’s diagnosis with a potentially lethal virus — and the fact that he is 74 and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, is 77 — was a stark reminder that either Pence or Harris could end up being president themselves, as opposed to just leading contenders for the nomination in 2024 and beyond.
For Pence, Wednesday’s debate will most likely compel him to account for the administration’s record on a virus that has now killed more than 209,000 in the United States and infected 7.4 million Americans — including the most protected man in the country, Trump — and answer for his own stewardship as chair of the federal coronavirus task force. For Harris, a former prosecutor, the debate is a chance to show that she is capable of being president in a national emergency, as well as to demonstrate that she can challenge the Trump record on COVID-19 without seeming overly aggressive against an ailing president.
Depending on how quickly Trump recovers, his condition could also force the cancellation of the two remaining debates between Trump and Biden. Should that happen, the 90-minute session Wednesday would be the final debate of this presidential election season, and the last chance for both parties to command a huge audience.
That could be particularly significant for Trump, whose unruly debate performance last week turned voters in some key states against him. An NBC News/
Wall Street Journal national poll released Sunday showed Trump trailing Biden by 14 points.
Raphael Sonenshein, the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, said that a debate between two running mates in any other year would be little more than a “political afterthought.” Wednesday’s vicepresidential matchup in Salt Lake City would be markedly different, he said,
“given the age and vulnerability of the candidates” running for president.
“The vice-presidential debate could be the only thing happening,” said Sonenshein, who was on a panel of questioners for Harris’ 2016 Senate debate.
There have been some questions about whether Pence should participate at all, given his exposure to a White House where new positive tests are arriving by the day. “He was sitting in a sea of people with COVID,” said
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, an infectious disease expert at Harvard University. “There is no way he should go anywhere.”
Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, rejected the suggestion that Pence should skip the debate, which will be held at the University of Utah. Pence has so far tested negative for the coronavirus, and the two candidates will be 12 feet apart, an increase from the 7 feet that was originally proposed.
“I have no concerns at all,” Miller said on the NBC program “Meet the Press” while discussing the safety of Pence’s attending the debate. “We’re in a campaign. We have a month to go. We see Joe Biden and Kamala Harris out there campaigning.”
Vice-presidential contests are rarely determinative in presidential elections, particularly one with as dominating a presence as Trump on the ballot. But this debate is taking place in the midst of a crisis: a hospitalized president sickened by a virus and a swirl of unanswered questions about the seriousness of his illness, his prognosis and when — or if — he will be able to return to the campaign trail. The election is now one month away.
Pence and Harris have until now largely been eclipsed by the contest between Trump and Biden. But it appears that for the time being, Pence will become the face of the campaign while its standard-bearer remains stricken with COVID.
For Pence, this is much different terrain from what he navigated in 2016. Trump has been besieged by questions about his handling of the coronavirus crisis and the extent to which his own behavior endangered himself and others, and now the pandemic has swept through the White House and some Republican circles.
Pence will face an added burden to make the most of this moment, given Biden’s lead in many polls and the dwindling opportunities to change the trajectory of the race.
Nagourney and Goldmacher write for The New York Times.