VP debate: What time does it end and how long is it?

Highly-anticipated matchup between pair will last 90 minutes with no commercial breaks

The vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence lasts for 90 minutes and takes place tonight between 9pm ET and 10.30PM ET (2am to 3.30am UK time).

It is being held on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and will be moderated by USA Today’s longtime Washington bureau chief, Susan Page.

It will be the only debate between the pair and is typically the second of the four debates organised by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Ms Page, 69, is the first print reporter to moderate a televised presidential or vice presidential debate since 1976, when James Hoge of the Chicago Sun-Times presided over the vice presidential debate between Walter Mondale and Robert Dole.

That 1976 debate in Houston, Texas, was the first vice presidential one in history and was watched by an estimated 43.2 million viewers.

Its most memorable exchange came when Mr Dole blamed the Democrats for global conflicts.

“All Democrat wars, all in this century,” he said.

Mr Mondale replied by saying that Mr Dole had “richly earned his reputation as a hatchet man.”

The most watched vice presidential debate of all time was the 2008 matchup between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, which was seen by 69.9 million viewers.

The least watched of these events came in 1996 when Al Gore and Jack Kemp only pulled in 26.6 million viewers.

The Commission on Presidential Debates has organised the election debates for more than three decades.

Each debate has been 90 minutes since moving from one hour in 1980.

Unlike the presidential debates the vice presidential candidates have traditionally sat behind desks rather than standing behind podiums.

Ms Harris, 55, and Mr Pence, 61, are both significantly younger than Mr Biden, 78, and Donald Trump, 74.

One of the most famous moments in vice presidential debate history came in 1988 during the matchup of Democrat Lloyd Bensten and Republican Dan Quayle.

Mr Quayle, who was 41 at the time, said he had the same amount of congressional experience as John F Kennedy when he won the presidency.

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy,” Mr Bensten admonished him.

But Mr Quayle had the last laugh when he and George H W Bush thrashed Mr Bensten and Michael Dukakis and won the White House.