Political Debate | featured news

No surprise here: Joe Biden versus Paul Ryan isn't as popular as Joe Biden versus Sarah Palin. Preliminary ratings for Thursday's vice presidential debate showed that about 43 million people tuned in to watch the coverage across six networks -- ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. (The numbers will be updated later to include viewing figures from other networks such as PBS and Fox Business Network.)

The complete transcript of the 2012 vice presidential debate from Danville, Ky.

Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's 90-plus minute debate Thursday reflected the job they seek -- important but not critical, more like a first-round playoff game than the Super Bowl.

Fifty percent of uncommitted voters polled after watching the vice presidential debate picked Joe Biden as the winner while 31 percent thought Rep. Paul Ryan won. Anthony Mason reports.

At odds in an instant, Republican Paul Ryan cited the death of the U.S. ambassador in Libya as evidence Thursday night that the administration's foreign policy is unraveling. Vice President Joe Biden shot back in campaign debate, “That is a bunch of malarkey.”

While vice-presidential debates typically don't have much bearing on the presidential contest, tomorrow night's Joe Biden-vs.-Paul Ryan showdown has put pressure on both sides. Team Obama NEEDS a strong performance from Biden to make up for last week and change the subject; another bad outing by a member of the ticket and the Democratic handwringing could turn into a full-fledged panic. Meanwhile, Team Romney needs a solid outing from Ryan to keep up the momentum. As we wrote last week, consider tomorrow night Game 2 of a baseball playoff series. After ace Romney beat ace Obama in Game 1, Democrats are looking for their No. 2 starter, Biden, to even the score. And Republicans are looking to go 2-0. That's what at stake Thursday, and that's why there's more pressure on Biden than on Ryan.

NBC, usually protective about the process of putting together Saturday Night Live, allowed access to the show’s writers, stars and rehearsals this week as they prepared their debate sketch.

Zingers flew and egos crackled Saturday night as Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly and “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart debated in front of a boisterous audience at the George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium.

The presidential race enters its final month enlivened by two events with the potential to reshape the contest or perhaps negate each other. Soon after Mitt Romney's strong debate performance came Friday's encouraging economic news, not a minute too soon for President Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama's lead over challenger Mitt Romney has narrowed to just two percentage points since the Republican's strong performance in their first debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.