What Went Down During The First Presidential Debate

One key point of debate over COVID-19 is when we might expect a vaccine. Work by Dan Carpenter shows that politicians aren’t very good at directly influencing the drug approval process, but can exercise influence indirectly by increasing media salience of a drug or vaccine.

The long and short of it is that the coronavirus remains the top problem for Americans. You leave your home to do anything, you have to worry about it. A recent poll from Echelon Insights found that 37 percent of likely voters said “getting the coronavirus pandemic under control” was the No. 1 priority for the next president. The next-closest priority was “restarting the economy,” which 18 percent preferred.

Since May, the share of Americans who said they would get a COVID-19 vaccine when it became available has been declining, according to tracking from YouGov/Yahoo News. Since July, the share of Democrats in particular has declined sharply: Back then, 61 percent said they would get vaccinated compared with 42 percent who said the same in September, a decline of nearly 20 percentage points. In the same time period, the share of Republicans who said they would get a vaccine has declined 12 points, while the share of independents has declined 8 points.