Tim Walz and JD Vance kept their vice-presidential debate mostly civil - instead focusing the majority of their attacks on their opponent's running mate
Walz hammered Donald Trump for making false claims as Vance criticised Kamala Harris over illegal migration
But there were a few heated moments in an otherwise cordial CBS event in New York - namely when the pair clashed over immigration and the 2021 Capitol riot
The debate was heavy on policy and the candidates fielded questions on the Middle East, abortion rights, climate change and the economy
Neither candidate landed a standout blow - instead Vance frequently made clear when he agreed with Walz, who struck a similar tone and at one stage said “there’s a lot of commonality here"
The contest may be the final debate of the campaign, as Trump and Harris are yet to agree another debate before the 5 November election
Watch key moments from the US vice-presidential debate
US President Joe Biden has posted his support for vice-presidential hopeful Tim Walz on social media, writing: "Coach, I got your back tonight!"
"Tonight, America will see the strong, principled, and effective leader I’ve known for years - and the contrast you and Kamala provide against the other team," he continues.
Stay with us for the latest as the debate is scheduled to kick off in just about an hour.
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from Las Vegas
Image source, Bernd Debusmann Jr / BBC NewsI'm currently in sunny Las Vegas, where some potential voters are anxiously awaiting tonight's VP debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance.
In interview after interview, Nevadans I've spoken to have identified the economy as their primary concern, ranging from high housing prices to expensive groceries and gas.
"People are really feeling the inflation," a currently unemployed restaurant worker named Fermin Gonzalez told me. "It trickles down to everything else."
Gonzalez, who has two children who work in the hospitality industry, tells me that his life is notably different than several years ago.
"$5 isn't $5 anymore, and $100 barely gets you any groceries," he said. "We used to be able to make money here. People are dissatisfied."
It's these issues that many people in Nevada will be hoping to hear about tonight - with questions about immigration, crime and foreign policy following well behind.
North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. You'll receive a special edition on Wednesday with his key takeaways from tonight's debate.
Readers in the UK can sign up here.
Those outside the UK can sign up here.
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from the debate in New York
Ahead of the VP debate, both presidential campaigns are dropping new political advertisements.
Kamala Harris's campaign has cut a spot that hits Donald Trump on his past position on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), an Obama-era program that expanded health insurance coverage for Americans.
The ad uses a clip from the presidential debate last month, when Trump responded to a question about the ACA by saying he had a "concept of a plan" to improve healthcare in the US. The Harris team points out that Trump once tried to dismantle the program when he was president and has pushed to replace it.
Donald Trump's side posted a new ad on X that sought to portray Harris as weak on foreign policy. The ad appears to recreate scenes of American adversaries watching Harris speak, before cutting to social media videos of Harris dancing. It then cuts to images of Trump in the White House during his presidency to set up a contrast between the two.
Political ads loom large in many Americans' lives in the period leading up to elections - they're often hard to avoid on television, radio and online.
Phil McCausland
Reporting from the debate in New York
Vance and Walz have had very different journeys on the campaign trail since being picked as presidential running mates.
The Trump campaign has put Vance front and centre after the former president named the Ohio senator as his VP pick. Vance has led his own campaign rallies and faced down some tough interviews - though not always without controversy or great results.
Walz, meanwhile, had a huge presence in the media around the time Harris announced her running mate pick. His plainspoken folksy Midwestern persona seemed to add some balance to the ticket.
But the man who popularised calling Trump and Vance "weird" on cable news has not made a major media appearance in quite some time, leading to some murmurs among political pundits about his declining presence.
Regardless of how their campaigns have chosen to use them thus far, however, both men will be front and centre tonight.
Mike Hills
Visual Journalism team
The race remains tight at the moment, with Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump in the national polling averages but only by a couple of percentage points.
Harris has been ahead of Trump in the national averages since she entered the race at the end of July - and not much has changed since the two candidates went head to head in the presidential debate on 10 September.
Before he quit the race, Joe Biden had been trailing Trump by more than three percentage points in the national averages.
We're tracking the polls every day as we approach the election here.
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from the debate in New York
As CBS News prepares to broadcast the vice-presidential debate, its flagship news magazine 60 Minutes announced that Donald Trump had pulled out of a previously scheduled interview.
60 Minutes traditionally invites both presidential nominees before the November election. It's usually a big opportunity for a candidate, given the show's historic clout and millions of viewers.
This evening, 60 Minutes posted on X that both Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris had previously agreed to participate in interviews that would air on 7 October, but Trump would no longer participate.
Responding on X, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said that 60 Minutes had "begged for an interview" and no formal agreement had been made. Cheung also said a sticking point arose when the news show "insisted on doing live fact-checking".
Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America correspondent, reporting from New York
Tonight’s vice-presidential debate is taking place in the shadow of major global events, as missiles fly from Iran toward Israel, and the Israelis contemplate a retaliatory strike.
The unstable situation in the Middle East, and the potential for an escalation into a regional war, is sure to be a topic of discussion at tonight’s face-off between Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance.
The Republican ticket has already been sharply critical of the Biden administration’s handling of this latest crisis. Expect Vance to attempt to lay blame for the ongoing violence at the feet of the Democrats. Walz, the governor of Minnesota, has largely avoided commenting on international affairs while on the campaign trail – but he will not be able to avoid the subject tonight.
Eventually, the conversation will turn to the issues that American voters say they care most about – the economy, immigration, healthcare and crime. But today is a reminder that issues of war, peace and global security can inject itself into American politics at a moment’s notice.
The senator from Ohio who rose to fame after writing a memoir will soon be taking the stage in New York opposite Tim Walz.
Want a quick guide to Vance? We've put one together here, and you can also watch the below clip to learn more about the Republican vice-presidential candidate:
Watch: JD Vance's journey from 'Never Trumper' to VP pick
A former school teacher turned governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz was picked as Kamala Harris's running mate shortly after she unexpectedly rose to the top of the ticket.
Here's a quick guide to learn more about the Democratic vice-presidential candidate and you can watch our video bio on him below:
Who is Tim Walz? The ex-football coach who is now a VP hopeful
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from the debate in New York
There’s a few things I’m watching for at tonight’s debate.
Image source, ReutersThe aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene in Chimney Rock, North Carolina
As the US Southeast reels from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the two presidential candidates are traveling to the region this week.
Donald Trump visited Georgia on Monday. Speaking in front of a damaged furniture store, Trump falsely claimed that President Joe Biden was “sleeping” during the storm and that Georgia’s Republican governor could not get a hold of the president.
The governor, Brian Kemp, said he had spoken to Biden and the president had offered him help.
Vice-President Kamala Harris will travel to Georgia on Wednesday to survey the damage and attend take part in an on-the-ground briefing.
Mike Wendling
Reporting from Washington DC
One of the standout moments of the presidential debate last month came when Donald Trump brought up wild rumours about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eating household pets.
“They’re eating the dogs,” he said. “They’re eating the cats.”
BBC Verify looked into the cat-eating claims and found that they were sparked by unfounded online rumours along with one real story that didn’t take place in Springfield or involve any Haitians.
Vance plays a key role in this story not only as a senator from Ohio who grew up not too far away from Springfield, but also as one of the people who was pushing the rumour before the debate.
He later told CNN that he was willing to “create stories” to highlight the “suffering of the American people”. In the same interview he insisted, however, that the pet-eating claims were valid and sent to him by Ohio constituents.
I have asked Vance’s office several times for details about those stories – how many of them he’s received, and whether there’s any evidence to back them up – but I’ve not yet received a response.
I also went to Springfield to find out more about the impact of these rumours. I found legitimate concerns about the pace of immigration along with fears from the Haitian community about their safety, and a general feeling that the rumours had put the city under a microscope.
We’ll see if the cats and dogs come up again tonight.
Phil McCausland
Reporting from the debate in New York
With so much capable of derailing a US presidential campaign, "do no harm" is the first rule of being a nominee's running mate.
You tend to hear that nugget of wisdom whenever the post of vice-president is mentioned during a campaign, from the time when contenders are considered up to a night like this one.
It essentially means that Vance and Walz will need to avoid straying too far from the preparation they did with their campaigns, and - perhaps more importantly - keep their emotions in check when facing pointed questioning.
The idea is to avoid doing anything that risks becoming a series of headlines or talking point for pundits.
But this presidential election is unlike any other, so we will see whether Vance and Walz follow that simple rule in just a few hours.
Madeline Halpert
Reporting from the debate in New York
The president of the White House Correspondents Association - the organisation of journalists who cover the White House - is taking issue with the media's access to debates, tonight's included.
The association is growing "increasingly concerned about the lack of a media access inside debate halls", Eugene Daniels, the group's president, says in an email.
"The unprecedented backsliding in access has limited our ability to chronicle the on-camera debate, in addition to the moments during commercial breaks. The American people deserve to have a clear view of these moments," he says.
Daniels said the problem comes from both campaigns' decisions not to work with the Commission on Presidential Debates, instead working directly with news organisations.
News organisations that choose to host presidential debates should "adhere to the precedent of transparency", Daniels says.
Sam Hancock
Live page editor, in Washington DC
Our debate reporting team in New York are all set up in the CBS News studios, and my colleagues here in DC are getting ready to take you through the next few hours and the debate itself from 21:00 ET (02:00 BST).
I'll soon hand over the editing of our live coverage to them, with just three-and-a-half hours to go until Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz and the Republican pick, JD Vance, take the stage.
The conflict in the Middle East has been dominating headlines today - culminating in both presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris making separate statements about Iran's missile attack on Israel.
Walz and Vance are likely to be asked about that - in addition to some of the other topics expected to come up: the economy, abortion and immigration.
Before I head off, a final reminder that the BBC will show the debate, hosted by CBS News in New York, in an array of places - including at the top of this page. Stay tuned for the remaining build-up.
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from the spin room
Image source, BBC NewsGreetings from the spin room, where the TV cameras are hot and we're awaiting top surrogates from the campaigns to start arriving.
The CBS News team converted the studio used for John Oliver's satirical news show Last Week Tonight just for the debate.
Networks are set up in a ring around a central floor space, which will soon be flooded with reporters and politicians.
I'll be here before and after the debate, so stay tuned for more dispatches from the spin room.
It’s been an intense period of debate preparation for both candidates.
Walz has reportedly been practicing with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who told the New York Times that they were concentrating on Vance’s “faux populism”.
Republican Representative and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer is helping Vance with the debate, standing in for Walz, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.
Walz has said that he expects Vance “as a United States Senator, a Yale Law guy” to “come well prepared”.
Away from the debate, we're hearing from Vice-President Kamala Harris, who's been speaking about the current situation in the Middle East.
She says she's been in the White House Situation Room with President Biden today, where the pair discussed Iran's missile attack on Israel.
"We are still assessing the impact. But initial indications... Israel, with US assistance, was able to defeat the attack," Harris tells reporters.
She adds she will ensure that Israel always has "the ability to defend itself against Iran" and Iran-backed forces.
We're beginning to see some of the first images from inside CBS Broadcast Center, where the VP debate is taking place.
Below is tonight's spin room - an area where reporters can speak to people representing debate participants. Its name comes from the fact those representatives will attempt to influence, or spin, an onlooker's perception of the debate.
Image source, Getty ImagesMeanwhile, camera crews have been photographed setting up outside the building - ready for members of the media to report on what JD Vance and Tim Walz are saying when the time comes.
Image source, Getty Images