Christine O'Donnell debates Chris Coons in Delaware - as it happened

• Christine O'Donnell stutters on Afghanistan, healthcare
• Democrat Chris Coons emerges as debate winner
• O'Donnell refuses to answer question on evolution
• Tea Party favourite was relaxed but weak on detail

Christine O'Donnell supporter outside the site of her debate against Chris Coons in Newark, Delaware, tonight. Photograph: Tim Shaffer/Reuters

Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favourite who shocked the Republican party by winning its Senate primary in Delaware, is the centre of American politics tonight as she prepares for her most public outing.

How O'Donnell captured the public's attention is no surprise, given her back-story of controversial television appearances. But she has since become a public face of the Tea Party and its radical reshaping of the Republican party, and now vies with the likes of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman in name recognition and exposure.

We'll be following all the debate action here live, from 7.30pm ET (12.30am in the UK), and the post-debate reaction. Please, leave your thoughts and comments below and follow events on Twitter right here with our list of 50 Top Twitter accounts for US politics.

7pm: Good evening and welcome to the Christine O'Donnell circus. She may not be a witch but how about a clown?

Since she won the Republican primary so dramatically, according to the polls Delaware voters haven't embraced her. There's a new poll out tonight from CNN/Time, which polled an awesome 3,000 likely voters (which is about roughly half the population of Delaware), and it's bad news for O'Donnell:

According to a CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday, 57% of likely voters in Delaware support Coons, the executive of New Castle County, with 38% backing O'Donnell, who scored a major upset last month when she defeated Rep. Mike Castle to win Delaware's GOP Senate nomination.

Almost every other poll has shown similar margins. That's why tonight debate is so important for O'Donnell.

7.15pm: So how will the debate go? Here's my guess: O'Donnell will actually do very well. And here's why: she is a very experienced TV performer, so should be very comfortable in the medium.

As we saw with Sarah Palin in 2008, and George Bush in earlier elections, even a weak debater can be transformed into a useful one with enough coaching. O'Donnell has hardly been seen in public for the last two weeks, and my guess is that she has been practicing for this non-stop.

There is always the prospect that O'Donnell will just "make stuff up", given her history of doing so on live television. But I doubt it. But who can say? That's what makes this exciting.

7.19pm: And here's an attractive O'Donnell supporter outside the debate venue in Newark:

A Christine O'Donnell fan outside the debate. Photographer: Tim Shaffer/Reuters

Yes, dressed as a witch. That's a supporter. Isn't O'Donnell not a witch?

7.25pm: How will the Democratic candidate Chris Coons cope with it all? Since O'Donnell has to make all the play here, since she's way behind in the polls, he just need to fend her off and keep cool.

Coons's campaign asked for advice from Joe Biden, based on his debate against Palin in 2008, which makes sense. Basically, Coons could just recite the Pledge of Allegience for every question and still win.

7.30pm: Here we go. Wolf Blitzer of CNN is reading out the rules. No biting, no scratching.

The first hour will be questions from moderators, then half an hour of questions from the great unwashed. Opening statements now, Coons to start. He looks like a vaguely sexier American version of William Hague (for British readers) without the Yorkshire accent but with all of the Hague charisma. Yes, he's that exciting.

7.33pm: Coons's opening statement is about how he has a proven track record, whereas... well he doesn't have to say anything, since O'Donnell doesn't have a track record.

"I look at this debate as a job interview," says Coons.

7.34pm: It's O'Donnell. It's the national debt! "My opponent wants to go to Washington and rubber stamp the spending bills."

As I suspected she's very smooth on TV. But she's reading from cards, whereas Coons didn't, at least not obviously. Oh no he did too, I'm told.

"A vote for my opponent will cost the average Delaware family $10,000 instantly," says O'Donnell. Oh yeah.

7.36pm: Question one: it's the economy stupid. Why trust a Democrat again? "I think the voters of Delaware should trust this Democrat," says Coons, listing his business background and experience as a county executive.

Now he's on about a new tax credit. Or something. Expanding the home office tax credit. Woo! Home office tax credit NOW!

7.38pm: O'Donnell is going on about tax increases while Coons was Newcastle county executive, and then repeats the "rubber stamp" line. That's obviously the talking point of the night.

But she over-ran her time there and gets cut off.

Specifically, what would you do to help the economy, Ms O'Donnell? "Get out of the way of the entrepreneur," she says, and proposes ... a two-year capital gains tax cut. And, of course, get rid of the "death tax". That will help dead entrepreneurs, for sure.

Coons is coming back at her, saying he doesn't understand what she's on about, and says he doesn't believe some of the numbers she has just quoted about unemployment doubling in Delaware "under his watch". She replies that they come from the Bureau of Labor and will be on her website tomorrow. We'll see.

Pizza shop owners make $300,000 a year? That's what O'Donnell just said. Maybe. I paid $30 for one recently so there's dough to be had. (Pete's Apizza in Columbia Heights. Tasty.)

7.43pm: Ooooh Coons is punching back, saying that many of the things O'Donnell claims on her website "simply aren't true".

CNN has a split screen up, showing both candidates, and O'Donnell may not realise it but her eye-rolling and grimaces are being seen.

7.44pm: What would you cut from the federal budget? Wolf asks O'Donnell, and don't say waste, fraud and abuse, he warns.

So O'Donnell goes on about ... waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and education.

Now she's making some point about Coons's spending policies. "He's a career politician," says O'Donnell.

Coons sensibly ignores O'Donnell's attacks and goes deep into the weeds of federal spending cuts he'd support, like the second engine for the F-35. Dammit, that second engine has to go.

7.47pm: Oh now the moderator asks about "personal finances," and lists O'Donnell's various dodgy personal financial matters, such as a tax problem.

She tries to go off on a tangent about how wealthy Coons may be, and the moderator drags her back. "I worked for non-profit groups," O"Donnell says. "I sold my house," she claims, which is interesting because her bank was threatening to do that for her at one point.

7.50pm: "You're just jealous you weren't on Saturday Night Live," laughs O'Donnell for some reason that isn't clear, after Coons says the attacks on O'Donnell are a distraction. It comes off like a scripted line. "I can't wait to see who plays me," Coons responds. Not bad.

7.52pm: O'Donnell is trying hard to rile Coons, throwing out lots of accusations about corruption. Blitzer asks Coons to respond. "That may take a while," says Coons and then, in response to some point O'Donnell made about Delaware's bond rating, says: "My opponent doesn't know how bond ratings work." I think we can probably agree that's cruel but fair.

O'Donnell, as we know from the Republican primary, can play dirty, and she is doing so here. She needs to watch that off-camera eyebrow raising.

7.55pm: Foreign policy. Like anyone cares?

Oh it's Afghanistan. Except that O'Donnell at one point talks about withdrawing from Iraq. Coons kindly corrects her: "I suspect you meant Afghanistan."

"I'm concerned that it's a conflict that without an end in sight," says Coons, and O'Donnell is on about a "random withdrawal" and accuses Coons of "jumping around" on this and taxes. "Let's focus on the issue here, which is Afghanistan," says Coons.

O'Donnell then says perhaps the gaffe of the night:

"When we were fighting the Soviets over there in Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s, we did not finish the job, so now we have a responsibility to finish the job and if you are gonna make these politically correct statements that it's costing us too much money, you are threatening the security of our homeland."

Uh? The US was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s? There's a slip, as well as Iraq/Afghanistan mix-up. Since the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 that's really just plain wrong, but in no way was the "US fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan" - unless you count Jimmy Carter's boycott of the Moscow Olympics?

Anyway, O'Donnell sounds entirely out of her depth and is rattling on about benchmarks and seems to like President Karzai rather more than seems useful.

7.59pm: The witch ad! "This election cycle should not about comments I made a decade and a half ago," says O'Donnell. So why did you open a TV ad with "I'm not a witch"?

Anyway, O'Donnell says she loves the people of Delaware so much, and that's what important. "My faith has matured over the years," she says. That's nice. And the Constitution is what will be her guide in all things.

Coons is asked to rebut that, which is hard since you can't rebut jelly. Which parts of the constitution do you like, asks Coons, all of it or just the parts that suit you? O'Donnell doesn't respond and the question moves on to religion, or "faith" as they put it here.

8.03pm: Wolf asks O'Donnell about her once saying "evolution is a myth". "That should be decided by the local community," says CO'D.

Doug Mataconis, tweeting as @dmataconis, says:

Local schools should decide if evolution is a myth? Sorry Christine, in 1985 the Supreme Court said absolutely No.

Wolf is pressing her to say what she believes about evolution. "What I believe is irrelevant," says O'Donnell, trying to explain what she meant, and is just waffling. Very unimpressive but the moderators let her off the hook after a couple of tries to get her to answer the question. Obviously they skipped this bit in the coaching sessions.

Now O'Donnell goes to the very vague use of the word Marxism by Coons many years ago. This is a reference to an article Coons wrote as a student with a headline referring to himself as "a bearded Marxist". "I am a clean-shaven capitalist," Coons replies, which gets a laugh despite his repeating an old line.

O'Donnell is trying very hard to make this point, Coons merely responds to her thought that this should "send a chill down the spine of Delaware voters" by saying, "If it were true I'd agree."

8.08pm: As predicted, O'Donnell is quite good at this stuff, she knows how to work TV. Unless of course you actually listen to what is she is saying, it's all either fairly wild or bland nothings. So, on education, her solution is to "sit down and talk to teachers" and says problems will not be solved by "throwing more money at them".

So far O'Donnell's not said anything that isn't cut and paste from the Big Book of US Political Debate Replies.

8.12pm: Teachers "have the most influence over our students" says O'Donnell. Well, duh.

8.14pm: Healthcare reform. O'Donnell just waffles, saying at one point "We need to make health care more affordable," stressing the word "care" as though its important.

8.22pm: Dammit, CNN just cut away from coverage of the debate! To its stupid Parker-Spitzer talkshow. Gah. Over to CNN.com.

You fools, CNN. That's a cheap stunt.

8.23pm: Where were we? In the middle of fascinating stuff, as O'Donnell was floundering. O'Donnell was talking what I believe would be accurately described as "nonsense", banging on the Republican talking point about the government dictating to doctors what they could do, saying: "Uncle Sam has no business coming in the examination room." Ah, really? "That's a great slogan, you toss it around every time you speak," says Coons.

O'Donnell gets asked who should pay if people without insurance need treatment, and she is utterly lost, saying "We have to address that" and doing the goldfish thing. "Ah, make them pay it," is her eventual reply. "Nobody should be forced to pay for anyone else's healthcare," is her off-the-cuff final answer.

"That's what happening today," says Coons, explaining what happens when uninsured people get sick in the US and go to ER rooms, and who ends up paying.

Very weak stuff from O'Donnell. Clueless.

8.27pm: Now it's the "classified knowledge" that O'Donnell once claimed she had on the subject China. Tonight she says she was talking about briefings she got when working for a non-profit but doesn't say what they were.

Anyway, it appears that because the US owes money to China, China won't help it with Iran or North Korea. According to O'Donnell. Ah ha.

On the specific point of her previous claim that "China has a plan to take over America," Wolf asks, quoting O'Donnell's previous words back to her, what is it? I was misquoted, says O'Donnell, which is quite weird. She misquoted herself? That's very post-modern.

"Right now China could take us over monetarily," says O'Donnell. What? The technical term for that is "bollocks".

8.33pm: Questions from pimply students at the University of Delaware now. And they are actually pimply. The students, not the questions, although they aren't great.

On "don't ask, don't tell," Coons says he's in favour. O'Donnell is a muddle, saying that judges shouldn't legislate from the bench and that Congress shouldn't force its social agenda. So who should? The military, says O'Donnell. So the military is a law unto itself?

But why specifically, asks Wolf. "Because it's a military policy that our military set forth," replies CO'D.

O'Donnell is sounding very uncertain and doesn't seem to know that DADT was a policy put in place by Congress and the White House, and that civilian control of the military is kind of a big deal.

With perfect timing, Coons brings up the example of Harry Truman and the racial integration of the US military against the wishes of the generals and high command.

On abortion, O'Donnell jumps in to say that she was against abortion but that the number of abortions following rapes is tiny. Very defensive there, answering questions no one had asked.

8.38pm: On campaign finance reform, O'Donnell claims her donors are receiving intimidating calls from being forced to disclose their details. The answer, she says, is that donors names should be declared to the FEC but not published. So no one could find out who they are. How useful, and a new meaning to the word transparency.

"There's just so much there Wolf, I just don't know," says Coons, when asked to respond, literally throwing up his hands.

8.42pm: Here we are on the New York City mosque downtown, and O'Donnell says the local community should be listened to. Wolf points out that most of the local community, including the mayor and council, support it. Oh well, maybe they'll be voted out, says O'Donnell. Mmm. That's the sound of a straw being clutched.

On to the Supreme Court, which recent decisions do you disagree with? O'Donnell looks blank and says she can't think of any. Well we know you disagree with Roe versus Wade, says Wolf. Oh that, I thought you said recent decisions, says O'Donnell - which is a fair point. But she can't think of any others, although she mentions "pornography" and otherwise reduced to mentioning the "don't ask, don't tell" decision, which she admits was a federal court decision.

Coons has another go at the recent Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court that blew up campaign spending laws.

8.47pm: O'Donnell is making some weird point about cap and trade legislation, saying that Coons's family's business – the company that makes Gore-Tex – would have gained somehow from cap and trade. Coons says not that he's aware.

Wolf then asks O'Donnell for her evidence on whatever it is she means and she comes up with ... fuel cells. Not quite sure what she's trying to say there. And neither does Coons.

"It was difficult from her question to know what she was talking about," says Coons, who points out that the company makes thousands of products, including dental floss, and then goes on a brief lecture about some component the company makes for fuel cells, although that has nothing to do with cap and trade that is obvious – or even not obvious.

Coons seems very fluent and more impressive. As in, he might actually know what he's talking about.

8.52pm: In some ways this is like hearing people speaking two different languages, like Mandarin and (in O'Donnell's case) Klingon.

Wolf goes to back to the "witch" ad. "Why did you do that?" asks O'Blitzer. "To put it to rest," says O'Donnell. But why if you knew that people would talk about it?

8.56pm: Closing statements! Woo!

O'Donnell: reading again. "What Washington needs now is new voices," she says and then gets off a string of nasty accusations about Coons. Again, this is just cut and paste Tea Party internet download.

Coons: also reading. "Ms O'Donnell has experience - of running for office, not running anything." Coons sticks in the knife.

Time is up. That was as much fun as doing laundry but without the clean, fresh smell.

OK, what's the conclusion?

9.02pm: Hey, all the Chilean miners are up. For some reason CNN.com switched straight from the debate to CNN's Spanish language channel. "Rescate de 33: Objetivo Logrado". Cool. But not quite what I was hoping.

9.09pm: On O'Donnell's repeated squirming and attempts not to answer the question about whether or not she believed in evolution, a sharp reader emails:

If she doesn't believe in evolution she's more likely to have descended from witches than monkeys.

9.15pm: I'll do some more analysis when I get my brain working again. But my first thought is that O'Donnell was worse than I'd expected while Coons was surprisingly good. I think she actually did him a favour tonight.

9.20pm: My second thought is: I knew it was a mistake to live blog this debate while sober. It certainly didn't help.

9.35pm: O'Donnell was all over the place a couple of times but the worst gaffe was her remark that "we" were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s. Here's the full quote:

"If you remember when we were fighting the Soviets over there in Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s, we did not finish the job, so now we have a responsibility to finish the job."

Fact: The Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. Another fact: If "we" means the US (and you've got to think it has) then the US did in no way "fight" the Soviet Union. But I'm sure O'Donnell will claim that she meant to say supported the mujahideen or Taliban or Iraq or China. Whatever.

9.44pm: Transcripts of the debate are now coming through and we can enjoy Christine O'Donnell's full majesty of language:

Nancy Karibjanian: What opinions, of late, that have come from our high court, do you most object to?

O'Donnell: Oh, gosh. Um, give me a specific one. I'm sorry.

Karibjanian: Actually, I can't, because I need you to tell me which ones you object to.

O'Donnell: Um, I'm very sorry, right off the top of my head, I know that there are a lot, but I'll put it up on my website, I promise you.

Wolf Blitzer: We know that you disagree with Roe v Wade.

O'Donnell: Yeah, but she said a recent one.

Blitzer: That's relatively recent.

O'Donnell: She said "of late." But yeah. Well, Roe v Wade would not put the power. It's not recent, it's 30-something years old.

Blitzer: But since then, have there been any other Supreme Court decisions?

O'Donnell: Well, let me say about Roe v Wade. If that were overturned, would not make abortion illegal in the United States, it would put the power back to the states.

Blitzer: But besides that decision, anything else you disagree with?

O'Donnell: Oh, there are several when it comes to pornography, when it comes to court decisions – not the Supreme Court, but federal court decisions to give terrorists Miranda rights. There are a lot of things I believe. This California decision to overturn don't ask, don't tell. I believe there are a lot of federal judges legislating from the bench.

Blitzer: That wasn't the Supreme Court. That was a lower...

O'Donnell: That was a federal judge. That's what I said. In California.

10.09pm: So now let's hear from You The Reader in the comments.

• tardislass writes: The media everywhere seem to be infatuated with this race. Just remember Coons has a 15 point lead over O'Donnell and even the head of the Delaware GOP says she's unelectable. It may be spectacle but please don't think this is indicative of US politics.

Quite right, although she is indicative of the Tea Party movement and that's worth thinking about as the election draws near. Chris Coons is also pretty indicative of the technocrat wing of the Democratic party, and he was one half of the debate here.

• Loztralia writes: Sorry, have we already forgotten who was in power in the lead up to the financial crisis and created the conditions that allowed it to happen? Has the world gone batshit insane?

Well I agree with you but Wolf Blitzer seems to think here that US economic history began on 20 January 2009, based on that question.

• thea1mighty asks: O'Donnell has an honors degree!?

No, she hasn't. She has a BA and some "fellowship at a conservative think tank" that no one has heard of but not an academic credential.

• RipThisJoint says: Coons just articulated probably the best policy for immigration reform i've heard yet.

Rats, I missed that thanks to the CNN cut-out. Thanks again CNN.

10.20pm: One of the comments by a reader reminds me of a quote of Christine O'Donnell's that I didn't quite catch at the time – or rather, it sounded so dumb that I doubted my own ears:

America is a magnet for all those all over the country.

Very George Bush. And look where he ended up.

10.30pm: The ThinkProgress blog has the video of O'Donnell's health care floundering:

How not to answer a question, badly.

"Well, then we have to address that. We have to address that." Not really much of a response at all. Not sure about the "recent CBO report" she's raised here. That may be a "CBO report" in her head.

11pm: The closer you look at O'Donnell's performance, the worse it gets. Her answers don't survive serious examination, and when she wasn't dishing out platitudes or making hard-to-understand accusations about her opponent, she had very little to say. Several times she appeared to babble, talking nonsense about Afghanistan, was stumped when asked about the Supreme Court, had little clue about "don't ask, don't tell," and floundered on healthcare. She avoided several inconvenient questions by not answering them but failed to shrug them off.

O'Donnell had nothing to say and didn't say it very well. But she didn't implode on camera and knows that the key to TV is to keep talking calmly and everything will sound ok. That's fine for a talkshow guest but not for a Senate candidate.

Coons was the clear winner but O'Donnell's patchy performance meant he didn't have to work very hard. Given the opportunity he sounded impressive and he refused to let O'Donnell's accusations bother him.

The New York Times has an even-handed report that goes so far as to say:

While Mr Coons had broader range on issues and current events, he sometimes seemed mean-spirited.

NPR's report is also very fair and balanced:

O'Donnell's television experience (she has appeared frequently on air as a conservative voice, including multiple guest spots on comedian Bill Maher's show) showed - she was clearly more comfortable in front of the camera.

Sadly for O'Donnell, "comfortable" was all she was. We knew she could talk but that appears to be all she can do.