Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz felt like a civil and relatively restrained conversation about the issues at the top of American voters' minds going into the 5 November election.

In that, it was unlike the two presidential debates earlier this year.

The two men spent much more time attacking the other's running mate than each other during 90-plus minutes on the CBS News stage in New York.

Walz had a shaky start but hit his stride when talking about abortion and the Capitol riot.

But the even-tempered, policy-focused debate, with few political body blows, probably served Vance - a polished public speaker - best in the end.

If Vance was picked because he puts ideological meat on the bones of Trump’s conservative populism, on Tuesday night he put a polite, humble face on them, as well.

“Something these guys do is they make a lot of claims about if Donald Trump becomes president, all of these terrible consequences are going to ensue,” he said. “But in reality, Donald Trump was president. Inflation was low. Take home pay was higher."

There were moments when the Republican candidate bristled at what he thought was unfair fact-checking from the two CBS moderators, and at one point microphones of both candidates were temporarily muted.

But for the most part, the exchanges on stage were even-tempered.

And there were several moments when the two men agreed on issues – and said so.

“There’s a lot of commonality here,” Walz said toward the end of the evening.

When Walz spoke of his 17-year-old witnessing a shooting at a community center, Vance seemed genuinely concerned.

“I'm sorry about that and I hope he's doing OK,” he said. “Christ have mercy, it is awful."