What Went Down On Night One Of The First Democratic Debates

First question after the break is about gun control. Although the polls don’t show an intraparty gender gap yet, if the candidates differ on gun control a gender gap could emerge. Although male and female Democrats are really similar to each other on most issues, gun control is one big exception. And according to polling by Morning Consult, 62 percent of Democrats surveyed want the candidates to debate gun policy — the second most mentioned issue, after climate change.

Gun control is emerging as an issue in this year’s Democratic primary in a way that it hasn’t in the past few presidential election cycles. Interestingly, a new study found that there’s a partisan divide in how Americans respond to shootings on social media. Democrats tend to focus on the victims; Republicans tend to focus on the perpetrators.

This is also not a short commercial break. Things have gone awry.