US election 2016: Your daily dig from campaign trail

The Russian bear made an unlikely cameo

With just 33 days to go until Americans choose a new president in what feels like the longest campaign in US history, the spotlight briefly fell on the two running mates.

What just happened

The two vice-presidential candidates crossed swords in their one and only TV debate of the campaign. Mike Pence and Tim Kaine argued for 90 minutes at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, with many observers handing victory to Republican Indiana Governor Pence, simply because he sustained a volley of attacks from Kaine without suffering a wound.

Trump 'fool' and Clinton 'weak', say VPs

The BBC take - Anthony Zurcher, Farmville

For the last week, it's felt a bit like Donald Trump was routed. His woeful first presidential debate performance was compounded by a series of unforced errors, capped by an early morning Twitter tirade and a damaging New York Times story about his near billion-dollar business losses in 1995. His poll numbers headed south.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee's primary job - really his only job - was to stop the bleeding and give the campaign an opportunity to regroup. Mr Kaine's goal was to keep him from doing that. Mr Pence succeeded. Mr Kaine, while unloading a crate of opposition research on Mr Trump, failed.

Read more from Anthony

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What's about to happen

There's no respite for the vice-presidential candidates after Tuesday's late-night debate. Mr Pence hits the trail in Virginia and Pennsylvania on Wednesday, while Mr Kaine holds an event at a metal workers' union in Philadelphia. All eyes will meanwhile return to the top of the ticket as Mr Trump campaigns in Henderson and Reno, Nevada, and Mrs Clinton holds a fundraiser in Washington DC. The big beasts will meet on Sunday for their second debate battle, in St Louis.

Picture of the day

Love was in the air in Farmville, but it was in short supply on the debate stage

Random stat - 39

Tim Kaine interrupted Mike Pence 39 times.

Pence interrupted Kaine 19 times.

Quote of the day

And something away from the VP debate...

Activist and journalist Cassandra Fairbanks was once a darling of the left, who reported on the Ferguson protests and supported Black Lives Matter.

But now she is trying to rally her 70,000 Twitter followers to support Donald Trump.

Why?

She's been telling BBC Trending the reasons for this unlikely transformation.

Read the story here

The state of the race