Just under three weeks from Election Day, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will take the debate stage for the final time this evening in Las Vegas. And the Sin City setting feels somewhat appropriate given the nasty, personal turn in the campaign's final stretch.
The second debate a week and a half ago was perhaps the nastiest in modern political history, coming just after a 2005 tape showed the GOP nominee making vulgar comments about women and describing how he would kiss and grope them. Trump denied at that debate he had ever done those things and dismissed it as "locker room talk," but just days later multiple women came forward accusing him of doing the things he had described on the tape. Trump also brought several women to the last debate who had accused the Democratic nominee's husband, former President Bill Clinton, of sexual assault.
In the week since that brutal faceoff, Trump has fallen further behind Clinton in the polls and has begun to allege that the election will be rigged against him, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud whatsoever.
Clinton's lead has continued to grow, especially in battleground states that give her a firm lead above the 270 votes she needs on the Electoral College map. Her campaign has even looked to expand that map in traditionally red territory like Arizona and Texas.
But Clinton's campaign has had headaches, too. WikiLeaks released hacked emails from her campaign chairman, John Podesta, but there were no bombshells other than to reinforce the perception of the former secretary of state that she is too close to Wall Street and could change positions based on political expediency.
All of these controversies are sure to come up during the 90-minute debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. But moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News has also said he plans to ask the candidates about debt and entitlements, immigration, the economy, the Supreme Court, foreign affairs and their fitness to be president.
NPR's politics team, with help from reporters and editors who cover national security, immigration, business, foreign policy and more, is live annotating the debate. Portions of the debate with added analysis are highlighted, followed by context and fact check from NPR reporters and editors.
Watch live in the video below, and follow along with the fact-check.
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