SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH-The two candidates for vice president, Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, the only Black woman to seek the 2020 Democratic nomination for president and the first Black woman to run on a major party presidential ticket in America, debated Wednesday night at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, the only vice presidential debate scheduled leading up to the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden, a former vice president under former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, leads President Donald Trump in the polls nationally, and in most of the swing states.

With Pence and Harris separated by Plexiglas, the 90 minute, interrupted debate before a small audience of masked spectators, including the spouses of the two candidates, was sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates and moderated by Susan Page, a USA Today Washington Bureau chief.

More than 57 million people watched the celebrated debate, which was televised across more than 18 channels, a historic debate that saw a Black woman, for the first time ever, effectively take on a White man for his seat as vice president in a first-world country, and before millions of people.

The debate comes as President Trump battles the coronavirus and Congressional Democrats battle the president and a Republican dominated U. S. Senate on a coronavirus stimulus package the president is stalling on as the pandemic rages on and is re-spiking in more than 25 states.

Sen. Harris was splendid, smart, thoughtful, empathetic, strong, and likable, and she stayed away from being too controversial, and too aggressive, her supporters said after the debate.

Harris won the debate hands down, pundits said, while Pence  held his own and scored points with the right wing segment of the Republican Party, Pence pushing a pro-life stance, and Harris advocating for reproductive rights for women and unrestricted access to abortion.

She defended Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case that made abortion legal nationwide.

"Harris said, “I will always fight for a woman’s right to make a decision over her own body. It should be her decision, not that of Donald Trump or Mike Pence.”

The candidates went back and forth over Trump's U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative currently sitting on the 7th Circuit appeals court bench in Chicago, whom Harris said would likely vote to overturn Roe v Wade if the opportunity were before her as a potential Supreme Court justice, a lifetime appointment.

And they took opposite positions on the president's efforts, supported by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Congressional Republicans, to rush confirmation hearings, Harris saying confirmation hearings on any Supreme Court nominee should be stayed until after the presidential election, and the 2021 presidential inauguration.

As to COVID-19, Harris blamed the Trump administration for the more than 212,000 coronavirus deaths in the country, and she called the president's mishandling of the deadly virus a cover-up of mass proportions.

"The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country," Harris said.

Pence said that before the virus hit in early March the president had stabilized the economy that had seen historic lows in unemployment, Harris saying that Trump and Pence were taking credit that should be handed to Biden and Obama, Trump's predecessor who served two-terms as president until 2017.

Harris, 55, comfortably took on Black issues, from criticizing  President Trump's refusal to denounce White supremacy during the First Presidential Debate in Cleveland on Sept 29, to condemning the absence of a Black female justice on the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court.

On the issue of erroneous killings by police of Black people, both candidates said the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May and 26-year-old Breonna Taylor by Louisville Metro police in March concerned them.

But unlike Harris, Pence, 61, would not condemn the grand jury that issued an indictment against the former detective that shot and killed Taylor on  felony reckless endangerment charges and not aggravated murder or manslaughter, that same grand jury refusing to indict the other two White cops involved in Taylors killing.

"“I trust our justice system and a grand jury that refused the evidence,” Pence said.

They differed on the environment, tax policies, and the Affordable Care Act, Harris arguing that Trump and Pence are hellbent on getting rid of the federal legislation that brought health insurance to more than 20 million people.

She said that another Trump administration will do everything possible to make it difficult for Americans with preexisting conditions to get affordable health insurance.

"If you love someone with a preexisting position they're coming after you," said Harris

A CNN debate poll has Harris winning last night's debate at 59 percent, as Pence was favored at 38 percent.

Republicans beg to differ, and say Pence won, though it was clear that  Harris, also a former San Diego  district attorney and California attorney general, outdid the sitting vice president and former Indiana governor, many saying that while Pence complimented Harris during the debate for making history as a Black female vice presidential candidate, he also could not hide his disdain for her,

A native of Oakland elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016, Harris became the fourth woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America behind vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton a presidential candidate that year.

Biden promised to choose a female running-mate during the 11th Democratic Debate on March 15 in Washington, D.C as pressure subsequently mounted by Black leaders and Democrats, and even some mainstream media, for that woman to be a woman of color, preferably a Black woman.

Others on Biden's short list for vice president, most of them Black women, were U.S. Sen Tammy Duckworth, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Rep. Val Demings of Florida, former national security adviser Susan Rice, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep Karen Bass of California.

Harris brings a Jewish husband to the White House, if she and Biden win in November, and she enjoys a grown stepdaughter and step son whom she says she is close too, as she is with her only sister.

Her parents are both dead.

She received her law degree from the University of California and her undergraduate degree from Howard University, a historically Black university located in Washington D. C., the nation's capital, and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, one of the prominent Black sororities in the country, among several of them.

A staunch Obama ally, Harris was a known pick in Democratic political circles to be the one both Biden and Obama favored  for Biden's presidential ticket.

Hailing from the nation's most populous state, she was the best known on Biden's narrowed list of potential running mates

Whether Harris truly believed she could win the Democratic nomination for president when she entered the race last year is questionable, pundits say, her performance and likability on the campaign trail a plus in winning a slot on her party's 2020 Democratic presidential ticket.

She suspended her presidential campaign last December after fundraising difficulties and consistently low poll numbers in the months leading up to her departure, the senator polling at just 2-4 percent in some polls, a drop from when she surged to second place at 22 percent and within five percentage points of Biden following her spectacular performance during the First Democratic Debate in Miami, Florida.

Upon dropping out of the race for president she told supporters in an email that she could no longer afford the pursuit of the presidency due to a lack of money but that she will continue to fight.

“My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue,” Harris wrote. “But I want to be clear with you: I am still very much in this fight.”

Most notably on the campaign trail for president, Harris raised eyebrows when she took on Biden during the First Democratic Debate on race, saying he has fraternized with segregationists and that he should not have opposed court-ordered public school busing plans, busing a 1970s, 80s and 90s phenomenon in place to seek to remedy racial disparities and intentional discrimination against Black children in America's  general largely Black public school districts.

And while she may have surged in the polls regarding her dispute with Biden on race during the First Democratic Debate, some Democratic voters, mainly Whites, simply did not like her attacking Biden, 77, her supporters saying she did what debaters do to win.

During Wednesday's debate Harris was mindful of how sexist and racist America is, so she took a more low key approach to taking on the likable Pence, who, himself, has a different kind of debate style than President Trump.