What Went Down During The First Presidential Debate

Economic outlook can matter a lot in presidential elections, but right now Americans aren’t optimistic about the state of the economy. In a Quinnipiac University poll from late August, 37 percent of likely voters described the state of the economy as excellent or good, compared with 60 percent who described it as not so good or poor. This is the reverse of what the same pollster found in August 2019, when 61 percent of registered voters described the nation’s economy as excellent or good and 37 percent described it as not so good or poor. However, voters may not blame the president for the economic situation; in most polls, Trump’s handling of the economy remains among his best numbers, hovering near 50 percent. In this recent poll from ABC News/The Washington Post, 51 percent of registered voters said they strongly or somewhat approved of his handling of the economy.

The issue of masks is complicated and messy, like most of the COVID-19. We don’t know a lot about how well DIY cloth masks work. But most experts, even the ones who question whether masks are actually that effective, also told us they wear them themselves. And their point is that they don’t see masks as a substitute for distancing. They’d rather just see people stay away from each other and be MORE locked down.

Also, even though masks have become a huge political flashpoint, the vast majority of Americans are wearing them. According to polling by the Voter Study Group, 92 percent of Republicans say they’ve worn a mask when going outside in the past week, compared to 96 percent of Democrats.