How to Watch Tonight’s Vice Presidential Debate

Somehow, it has only been a week and a day since the first presidential debate of the 2020 election season. If you watched it, you may even still be recovering from the chaos. Well, it’s time to regroup, because the first and only vice presidential debate is on tonight. Here’s what to expect from the face-off between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris—and how to watch it, whether over the air, on cable, or online.

What to expect from the VP debate

After last week’s debate, having a “what to expect” section seems a little pointless, but here goes. Vice President Mike Pence (the Republican nominee for vice president) will debate Senator Kamala Harris (the Democratic nominee for vice president) tonight at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City starting at 9 p.m. ET. This time, Susan Page, USA Today’s Washington bureau chief, will moderate.

The debate will run for 90 minutes and consist of nine 10-minute segments without commercial breaks. At this point, a list of topics to be covered in the debate has not yet been released—though it’s difficult to imagine that COVID-19 won’t come up.

Pence and Harris will be seated 12 feet apart with a plexiglass barrier between them, as well as with another between the two candidates and Page. Though the Cleveland Clinic—which hosted the last debate and has been providing health and safety protocols for in-person campaign events—approves of this measure, the Pence campaign opposes it. “If Sen. Harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it,” Katie Miller, a Pence spokesperson, told Politico.

How to watch the VP debate

Like the first presidential debate, there are plenty of ways to watch this round for free. It will be shown live on every major network and cable news channel, including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and C-SPAN. There will also be multiple livestreams of the debate on YouTube, including ones from CBS News and C-SPAN. Viewers can also stream the debate through Twitter’s US Election hub in the “Explore” tab.