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Vice President Mike Pence wasn’t dealt the best hand coming into this debate. More than 210,000 have died in a pandemic that has also wrecked the economy and hurt millions of Americans. The vast majority of voters believe the country is on the wrong track.

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While Joe Biden’s 14-point lead over Donald Trump in the presidential race is the headline from the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the most interesting finding is that Biden has seen an increase favorability ratings:

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President Trump tested positive for the novel coronavirus just a couple of days after he spent nearly two hours within 8 to 10 feet of Joe Biden. While Biden hasn’t tested positive, it seems certain the presidential campaign will be disrupted regardless with Trump in quarantine.

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The commission that runs the presidential debates suggested yesterday it might come up with new rules to make the next two debates “more structured.” That’s simply a code word suggesting they want to try to force President Trump to follow the debate rules his campaign agreed to and make him stop interrupting and otherwise acting obnoxiously.

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Before last night’s debate, the FiveThirtyEight national polling average had Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by 7.1 percentage points — a wider lead than any candidate has had at this point in a president election since Bill Clinton trounced Bob Dole, in 1996.

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My initial reaction to last night’s debate was that it was an embarrassment and a disgrace. We can argue about whether Joe Biden could have done better, what Donald Trump was trying to achieve or whether Chris Wallace was a terrible moderator. But the overall sentiment was shared by most reviews this morning.

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Tonight’s presidential debate was probably watched by at least 80 million people.

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The vast majority of voters don’t expect to know the winner of the presidential race on Election Night due to the flood of mail ballots that may take time to count.

An invite just for members: A conversation with Jeffrey Toobin about his recent New Yorker piece on the legal fight awaiting us after the presidential election.

This virtual event is on October 1 at 11 a.m. ET.