How to watch the 2016 vice presidential debate

2016 Vice Presidential Debate Part 1: Presidential Skills

The first and only vice presidential debate of the 2016 election cycle has concluded. You can watch the full debate online here. 

On Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s running mates, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, respectively, face off in the vice presidential debate.

CBS News correspondent and CBSN anchor Elaine Quijano will moderate the 90-minute debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia at 9 p.m. ET.


  • Watch
    CBSN starting at 7 p.m. ET for coverage of the debate


The debate will be divided into nine timed segments of about 10 minutes each, according to the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. Quijano will ask an opening question and then Kaine and Pence will have two minutes to respond. Any remaining time will be spent delving into topics more deeply.

And Donald Trump may not be on the debate stage this time around, but he’ll be watching. In fact, he’ll be providing a running commentary.

The debate between Kaine, a senator from Virginia, and Pence, the governor of Indiana, comes a little more than a week after Clinton and Trump faced off in their first debate. The two nominees will debate each other again in a town hall-style event on Sunday night.

Polls following the first debate have shown most voters believe Clinton won and her campaign appears to have received a boost. In a CBS News/New York Times poll released Monday, Clinton leads Trump by four points, 45 percent to 41 percent, among likely voters, when also factoring in the candidacies of Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein. Before the debate, Clinton and Trump were tied at 42 percent in a four-way race. 

The first debate broke viewership records, with 81.4 million watching on 11 networks.

Kaine, 58, has spent the last day in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia to prep for the debate, though he did attend Sunday Mass at his home parish, St. Elizabeth Catholic Church. When asked about his efforts to prepare, Kaine said it was “intense,” but said he was still “calm” and plans to just be himself.

Pence, 57, meanwhile, held a rally in Ashland, Virginia Monday night. During debate prep, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker played Kaine and he said on a radio program over the weekend that Pence’s job will be to dismiss attacks on Trump and pivot to Clinton’s problems.

Clinton announced her decision to pick Kaine as her running mate in July. He was elected to the Senate in 2012 and previously served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 until 2011 and served before that as governor of Virginia from 2006 until 2010. He currently serves on the Armed Services, Budget, Foreign Relations Committees as well as the Special Committee on Aging in the Senate.

Pence has served as governor of Indiana since 2013 and previously served in the House from 2001 until 2013. For two years, he was chairman of the House Republican Conference. Trump selected him as his running mate in mid-July, ahead of the Republican National Convention.


→ What: Vice presidential debate

→ Where: Farmville, Virginia

→ When: 9 p.m. to 10:30 ET

→ On TV: CBS News, other broadcast/cable news channels

→ Online: CBSN, among many websites, will live-stream the event

CBSN’s prime-time coverage of the debate starts at 7 p.m. ET


CBS News’ Eric Brown and Alan He contributed to this report.

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