What Went Down During The First Presidential Debate

According to our tracker of polling data about Americans’ reactions to the coronavirus pandemic, 56.4 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis.

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.