Will This Week’s Presidential Debate Be ‘Rah-Rah’ or ‘Ruh-Roh’

I asked how you’re feeling about the debate. Hundreds of you responded with worries and hopes.

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Former President Donald Trump, left, and President Biden will face off in a debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta on Thursday.

Good evening. It’s debate week!

The showdown in Atlanta means the general election season is upon us, even if excitement isn’t exactly popping off the charts (more on that below). And that, dear reader, means On Politics will now start showing up in your inbox every weekday evening, as my colleagues and I try to make sense of this weird and weighty election. — Jess Bidgood

By Jess Bidgood

I asked how you all were feeling about the debate. I read all of your responses.

Laurie Lowe is a Democrat from Florida and a reader of this newsletter (hi, Laurie!). She has a plan for Thursday’s presidential debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump — and a plan B if things go south.

“My Democratic friends and I are all going to watch but are terrified that Biden will have one of his ‘moments.’ To lighten our mood we have Biden and Trump bingo cards,” Lowe wrote to me. “Bingo might turn into a drinking game instead if things go badly.”

Last week, I asked you all how you were feeling about the first 2024 general election debate. I read your responses, more than 600 of them. And, as I wrote earlier today, I learned that many of you have come down with a case of deep debate distress — a feeling I described as less “rah-rah” than “ruh-roh.”

Some of you expressed nothing but excitement, and you’re confident you’ll see a strong showing by the president. But many of you, like Lowe and her friends, want Biden to do well but worry he will slip up. Some described real despair about the prospect of seeing Trump on a debate stage once more. Many of you are sick of both men entirely, and are wrestling with whether or not to tune out altogether.

“I just look at it, and I’m like, is this it?” said Kyle Smith, a Democrat from Northville, Mich., when I called him yesterday afternoon. “This?”

“It’s almost like watching a car crash,” Nancy Davis, an independent from Pennsylvania, wrote. “You just can’t look away.”

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