The strategy seeks to paint Walz as a decadeslong, out-of-touch politician who deceives voters and will boost the image of Vance’s more amateur political career as a first-term senator.

“Tim Walz is very good in debates. Really good. He’s been a politician for nearly 20 years,” Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller told reporters Monday. “He’s not going to be the mildly gesticulating, effeminate caricature we see at rallies pointing to Kamala Harris and dancing about on the stage. Walz is going to be buttoned up.”

2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: VANCE AND WALZ TO GO TOE-TO-TOE IN CBS CONTEST

The approach is reminiscent to that of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign before her showdown against Trump earlier this month, when her spokesperson tempered high expectations due to Trump’s “constant lies and the lack of fact-checking by the moderators [that] make him difficult to prepare for.”

The move ultimately paid off, with Harris delivering a strong performance and answers that goaded an undisciplined Trump into straying off-topic with eyebrow-raising claims about Haitian migrants in Ohio, his crowd sizes at rallies, and falsehoods about the 2020 election.

The Trump campaign now appears to be trying to replicate that success when Walz and Vance go head-to-head for their first and only debate before voters head to the polls.

“This will be the real issue, I think, with Tim Walz, is how does he thread that needle of defending Kamala Harris’s radical record, but then also trying to say how some of her wacko Left policies are going to help people?” Miller said. “The only people who seem to have things better now than they did four years ago are illegal immigrants.”

Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), the chairman of the House Republicans’ campaign arm, has roleplayed as Walz to help Vance prepare for the debate. He described Walz, a purple-district congressman from 2007 to 2019 who took on a leftward bend as governor, as “nothing more than Gavin Newsom in a flannel shirt.”

“The hardest part was learning how to tell lies with a straight face,” Emmer told reporters. “Quite frankly, it’s tough because he is really good on the debate stage.”

Walz is reportedly fighting his nerves ahead of the 90-minute televised debate in New York hosted by CBS News. His most recent debate came during his reelection campaign in 2022, in which he played offense in supporting abortion rights but was put on defense for pandemic-era policies and energy issues.

Vance’s most recent debate was in his 2022 race against then-Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH). The matchup between Vance, then a first-time candidate known for his Hillbilly Elegy memoir about growing up poor in Appalachia, and the longtime Democratic politician presented a youth vs. experience contrast for voters, not unlike that of Vance and Walz.

Vance tied Ryan to the national party, painted Democrats as extremists on abortion, and reflected on his own family’s struggles with opioids to defend his more hard-line immigration stances to combat illicit drugs flooding into the United States.

Miller downplayed any notion Walz was anxious heading into Tuesday night thanks to his long tenure in politics.

“Tim Walz is a wily political veteran. He’s run countless campaigns. It’s two years of politics for J.D. Vance but two decades in politics for Tim Walz,” Miller said. “Don’t let any of this ‘Tim Walz is real nervous and chewing on his fingernails’ about how tomorrow night is going to go. He’ll have things memorized. He’ll be buttoned up. He’ll be very polished.”

Despite the praise for Walz’s skills, Miller also hyped up Vance and said the campaign has high expectations for him.

“That’s not to say that J.D. Vance won’t be prepared tomorrow or that somehow he isn’t up to the challenge,” he added.

Similarly, Trump played up Vance during his trip to Georgia on Monday, saying his running mate is a “very smart guy” and that he has “done a great job.” But Trump also downplayed Walz during his remarks, saying he didn’t think Walz should have “ever been chosen” and calling him “not qualified.”

Trump is set to offer a play-by-play response to the live event on Truth Social between “the Brilliant J.D. Vance and the Highly Inarticulate ‘Tampon’ Tim Walz,” the GOP presidential nominee posted Monday on his social media platform.

“I hope that Cognitively Challenged, Lyin’ Kamala Harris, will be listening so that she can again show the World how she will make up false facts and stories in order to change around an administrative FAILURE!” Trump wrote. “In any event, I will be commenting on what is going on.”