Biden - news: Campaigns in deadlock as Trump’s ‘erratic behaviour’ leaves debates in doubt

Harris’s ‘I’m speaking’ clapback to Pence interruptions appears on T-shirts within minutes

Lightning quick merchandise turnaround is becoming a feature of this election campaign, with candidate’s slogans and pronoucements slapped on a shirt or bumper sticker faster than you can say “malarkey”.

Richard Hall has this on the latest example of tomorrow’s kitsch.

The Squad accuses Pence of misogyny over Harris interruptions

Progressive Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar were among the millions of Americans watching and denounced the vice president for his attempts to interrupt Harris last night, with the latter applauding the candidate for holding her own and tweeting: “Patriarchy/misogyny is taking a beating tonight.”

Richard Hall has more on this.

The most important quotes from the vice presidential debate

The Harris-Pence encounter provoked some interesting reactions, with SE Cupp saying on CNN the vice president made her skin crawl, Rick Santorum proclaiming he had made “the best case possible for Covid” (er…) and former candidate Pete Buttigieg daring to go on Fox to question why a devout Christian like Pence would cosy up to man like Trump who pays off pornstars in his spare time.

On the best lines from the debate itself, here’s Griffin Connolly.

Lord of the flies

The true star of last night’s vice presidential debate was neither Harris nor Pence but this little fellow, who landed upon the vice president’s snow white bonce in the service of metaphor, his kind being a Biblical symbol of evil.

The insect is reportedly already in advanced talks with Showtime about a reality series and has his own Twitter account:

Joe Biden wasted little time in making fun of his cameo…

...while many were reminded of Barack Obama’s deft way with a swat.

Here’s Graeme Massie on an asbolute gift for the Biden camp.

Pence won’t say if Trump will accept election defeat peacefully

Here’s Andrew Naughtie on one of the veep’s more troubling response of the night.

Democrat attacks White House for ‘greatest failure in history of our country’

Harris undoubtedly scored her biggest win of the night going after the Trump administration on the coronavirus pandemic.

"The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country... This administration has forfeited their right to re-election," she said. 

Pence hit back at that by laying the blame for the pandemic squarely at China’s door and accused her of “playing politics with people’s health” by saying she would not accept a vaccine endorsed by Trump (pretty rich from him and this administration given the US death toll, case numbers and its mixed messaging on masks).

Richard Hall has this one.

Biden running mate holds Pence to account over climate crisis

Kamala Harris seemed to particularly enjoy taking on the vice president on the question of climate change.

Pence refused to say that climate change represents an existential threat to humanity and repeated his boss’s claim that forest management was “front and centre” of the historic wildfires seen this summer in the American West, where Harris’s own state of California was worst hit, declining to blame global warming. 

“The climate is changing but the issue is, what is the cause and what do we do about it," the vice president said, weakly.

He tried to pivot towards attacking the Biden-Harris ticket for threatening jobs by banning hydraulic fracturing but Harris shot that one down with ease.

Here’s how both summarised their arguments…

…and here’s Louise Boyle’s report.

Polls declare Harris winner of vice presidential debate

Joe Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris was widely believed to have won last night’s vice presidential debate over Mike Pence, with the Democrat polling 21 percentage points ahead of the Republican in a snap survey conducted by CNN.

Both sides of course claimed victory, with Donald Trump inevitably declaring on Twitter: “Mike Pence WON BIG!”

Speaking behind plexiglass screens at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, the candidates feuded over America’s loss of standing on the world stage under Trump, the future of police reform in the wake of the deaths of African Americans George Floyd and Breonna Taylor this summer and what each side intends for the US Supreme Court.

The California senator attacked the present administration on an array of issues, saying its leaders “don’t believe in science” or the “existential threat” posed by the climate crisis and denouncing its handling of the coronavirus pandemic as “the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country”.

Pence countered and scored a few punches of his own but inadvertently provided the viral moment of the night when a fly landed on his head, prompting Biden himself to capitalise by urging his supporters on Twitter to “Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly”.

John T Bennett was watching.

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s rolling coverage of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.