The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz

October 8, 2024
7/6c: pbs.org/frontline, PBS App
10/9c: PBS stations (check local listings), YouTube
& the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel
www.facebook.com/frontline | X (formerly Twitter): @frontlinepbs
Instagram: @frontlinepbs | YouTube: youtube.com/frontline

Every presidential election since 1988, FRONTLINE has presented The Choice, its critically acclaimed election-year special offering interwoven investigative biographies of both major-party candidates.

This election cycle, for the first time, FRONTLINE is also turning its lens on the lives and political evolutions of the two people vying to become second-in-command.

Premiering Tues., Oct. 8, on PBS and streaming platforms, The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz offers an incisive examination of the political lives and views of Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz as they run for vice president.

The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz draws on interviews with those who know Vance and Walz well — friends, advisors, journalists and political insiders — to trace how these two men from the middle of America found their opposing political voices, and to explore the ideas and influences they’d bring to the White House.

The film delves into the formative role of Vance’s time at Yale Law School, where he found inspiration that would shape his future at a speech by Peter Thiel, the tech investor who would eventually become Vance’s political benefactor. It was at Yale where Vance also began what would become his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

“I think JD is somebody who has harbored real frustrations about the direction of our country for a long time,” says Vivek Ramaswamy, a friend of Vance’s from Yale and a former contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

The film tracks Vance’s evolution from “never-Trumper” to a leading light of the “New Right” movement and now the former president’s running mate.

The VP Choice traces Tim Walz’s political emergence from his time as a high school teacher and National Guardsman in Minnesota, and how his opposition to the Iraq War and his experience at a George W. Bush rally in 2004 helped catalyze his entry into politics.

“He says, ‘You know, I’ve gotta get involved. I feel I have to do more … We’re becoming divisive in a way that is not the America we know or believe in. And I think I’ve gotta step up,’” Walz’s former campaign manager Terry Morrow says.

The film also examines his political career and how, in the shakeup after President Biden suddenly dropped out of the race, Walz quickly rose to the top of the VP short list.

Taking viewers inside key moments that shaped each candidate’s political rise, this clear-eyed documentary examines who Vance and Walz are and how they arrived at their dueling visions for what America should be. Offering trustworthy journalism and striking insights at a time when voters are being surrounded with partisanship and misinformation, The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz joins FRONTLINE’s acclaimed The Choice 2024: Harris vs. Trump as compelling and essential viewing for all Americans as November 5 approaches.

The trailer for The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz is available now.

The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting October 8, 2024, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel that night at 10/9c and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. The documentary is distributed internationally by PBS International. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcast episodes and more related to The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz.

Credits
The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz is a FRONTLINE Production with Schonder Productions and Left/Right Docs. The director is Gabrielle Schonder. The producers are Anya Bourg and Laura Kuhn. The writers are Anya Bourg, Gabrielle Schonder and James Jacoby.  The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

About FRONTLINE
FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won an Academy Award® as well as every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 108 Emmy Awards and 34 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. Support for The Choice 2024 is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.

Press Contact: Anne Husted, Associate Director of Publicity, Communications and Awards | frontlinemedia@wgbh.org | 617.300.5312