Our North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher will offer his expert analysis in a special edition of his weekly newsletter, US Election Unspun, picking over the bones of the debate.

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Nadine Yousif and Sam Cabral
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

Both candidates have reportedly been preparing for this debate for several days - but how they're going about it has looked very different.

Biden has been huddling with some of his closest advisors at Camp David, the rustic presidential retreat in the quiet mountains of Maryland.

In prep sessions, the Democrat is reportedly pouring over question-and-answer binders in an effort to frame the election as a choice between two opposites.

Biden is preparing with Ron Klain, his former chief of staff, who also helped him with get ready for his State of the Union speech in March. BBC’s US partner CBS News reported that Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel under former President Barack Obama, is playing the role of Donald Trump in the mock debates.

By contrast, Trump has been participating in a series of "informal policy discussions", according to his campaign.

In these sessions, he has huddled with lawmakers - including at least two vice-presidential contenders, Marco Rubio and JD Vance - as well as policy experts, senior advisors and outside allies on a range of topics from abortion to crime.

“He is thinking about how to translate these really, really important topics into a message that works,” said Republican Senator JD Vance in an interview with Fox News last week.

Image source, Getty Images

Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, has had many personal struggles that have spilled into the public view.

He was found guilty in June of illegal possession of a gun and lying about his drug use when it was bought.

It’s the first time a sitting president’s child has been convicted of a federal crime.

And Hunter Biden will be back in court in September to face charges in a separate trial, stemming from allegations he failed to pay at least $1.4m (£1.1m) in federal taxes.

Much has been made in recent years about Hunter's foreign business interests while his father was vice-president.

A laptop abandoned by Hunter at a Delaware repair shop - and the seedy contents of its hard drive - also featured prominently in the 2020 presidential campaign.

Analysis of its contents has provided proof of Hunter's extensive earnings from his work in China and Ukraine, as well as evidence of his alcohol- and drug-fuelled escapades.

As the president revs up his re-election campaign, the extensive fallout from his son's legal drama, business interests and tabloid-friendly life is proving to be an unwelcome distraction.

Image source, Reuters/Jane Rosenberg

Donald Trump’s court cases have dominated headlines for two years.

It started when he lost two defamation cases against New York writer E Jean Carroll

(One trial was in 2023 and another was in 2024).

Trump was ordered to pay a total of $88.8m in compensatory and punitive damages for defamation and sexual abuse.

Then he lost a fraud trial in New York in February and was ordered to pay $464m.

Those cases were civil matters, not criminal, which means Trump did not receive a criminal conviction.

But he was convicted as a criminal when he lost a hush money case in May(at another New York trial).

A jury found him guilty on 34 criminal charges. He has not been sentenced yet, and could potentially end up with jail time.

That verdict means Trump is the first former president in US history to be criminally convicted.

Looking forward, there are three other major criminal cases Trump faces:

• Whether he illegally conspired to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.
• Whether he (and 18 co-accused) conspired to overturn his very narrow defeat in the state of Georgia in the 2020 election.
• Whether he mishandled classified documents by taking them from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence after he left office.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in all of these legal cases. You can read more about them here.

Image source, Reuters

Remember when Nicki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy were trading insults in televised debates earlier this year? And Donald Trump wasn’t even on the stage.

That was all part of the months-long process the US political parties take to declare their candidates in a presidential election.

Haley and Ramaswamy flamed out, along with a cast of other conservative characters.

The shadow of Trump loomed too large; he has a vice grip on the party and no challenger was able to pry control away.

But Trump is not yet the official Republican nominee. The party formally announces its pick at the Republican National Convention. That starts on July 15.

And Joe Biden may be US president, but he is not officially the Democrats’ nominee for the 2024 election.

That pick will be made official at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

So while we all know the race is between Trump and Biden, they are actually taking part in tonight’s presidential debate without being official nominees.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Georgia

No one was talking about Georgia much in recent presidential elections.

That was until Joe Biden flipped the state from Republicans to Democrats in 2020, becoming the first Democratic candidate to do so since 1992.

He won by less than 1%, or, as Donald Trump once said in a phone call to Georgia's secretary of state, 11,780 votes.

That's out of 4.9 million people who voted in Georgia that year.

Since then, the former Republican stronghold has become a highly desirable battleground state, along with Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

In Georgia, all eyes are on the state’s young, black and brown populations.

These demographics have grown significantly in Georgia in the last decade, and turned out in record numbers to boost Biden’s victory in 2020.

The bulk of this coalition lives in metro Atlanta, home to roughly 45% of the state’s voters. Experts say that coalition will need to turn out again in force for the president to win Georgia again, though polls suggest his support among the group has waned.

Read more about what voters in Georgia are thinking.

The tradition of public debates between political candidates in the United States is often traced back to the Lincoln-Douglas debates, when a small-time Illinois politician named Abraham Lincoln went head-to-head against incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas seven times during the 1858 election.

Lincoln lost that Senate race but won national attention that helped sweep him to the presidency only a few years later.

The first televised presidential debate - between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon, in 1960 - has become the stuff of legend.

Nixon, a political veteran, appeared to many viewers watching at home as nervous and flustered, while young newcomer Kennedy came across as relaxed and self-assured.

Many commentators and historians have wondered if that difference in performances helped seal the result of the vote that ushered JFK to the White House.

Check out images of these two debates plus a look at other US presidential debates throughout the years:

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, MPI/Getty Images

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Image source, Getty Images

Joe Biden - US President

Age: 81

Party: Democrat

Campaign promises: Biden says he will safeguard reproductive freedoms, protect America’s democracy and standing in the world, and deliver on climate benchmarks. His pitch to voters is: “Let’s finish the job”.

Major moment of 2024: His son, Hunter Biden, became the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime. Hunter was found guilty of lying about his drug use when buying a gun in 2018.

Donald Trump - former US President

Age: 78

Party: Republican

Campaign promises: Trump says he will “seal the border” to halt illegal immigrants, has pledged across-the-board tax cuts, proposed a 10% tariff on all US imports, and vowed to “drill, baby, drill” for oil to bring down energy prices. Trump has also vowed retribution against his political opponents.

Major moment of 2024: A New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records. It made Trump the first former or sitting president to be convicted of a crime.You can read more about where both men stand on key issues here.

Image source, CNN/Reuters

CNN has a few rules to try to keep tonight’s debate running smoothly. Here’s what we know:

• The debate is 90 minutes long, with two commercial breaks
• Trump and Biden can’t talk to their staffers during those breaks
• Microphones will be muted for the whole debate, other than when it’s a candidate’s turn to speak
• Props and pre-written notes are not allowed
• But Biden and Trump will be provided a pen and paper, and some water
• There will be no studio audience
• A coin flip decided which side of TV screens they will be on (Biden on the right, Trump on the left) and also who will speak last (Trump)

The debate between Democratic US President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump starts at 21:00 EST(02:00 BST).

It takes place live on CNN from Atlanta, Georgia.

The moderators will be Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, both CNN political journalists who also moderated one of the Republican party debates earlier this year.

Stay tuned, it’s a massive day that will set the tone for the next phase of the US election.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the first US presidential debate for the 2024 general election.

The CNN-hosted debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump will mark the third time - though the first in this election cycle - that the Democratic and Republican candidates have faced-off on stage.

They ran against each other in 2020 and debated twice that year.

This event will set the tone for both men’s campaigns as they try to build momentum ahead of Election Day on 5 November.

We have reporters on the ground in Atlanta, Georgia - the battleground state in the upcoming election where this debate is being held.

And our correspondents and experts are here to bring you the latest analysis and news.

The debate is scheduled to start at 21:00 EDT(02:00 BST).

Stick with us.