VP Debates Usually Don’t Matter. But We’re Way Past Usual.

Welcome to Genesis Brand’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): President Trump may still not be out of the woods with his coronavirus diagnosis — he is back at the White House now after three days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and still receiving treatment — but the vice presidential debate is moving ahead as planned.

There are a number of new precautions in place for the debate, too, given the renewed focus on the coronavirus, including a hotly disputed plexiglass barrier to separate the candidates and no handshakes upon arrival.

We have less of an idea this time around about which topics Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris will debate, but without a doubt the coronavirus will be front and center — in fact, it might be hard for other topics to break through in the 90 minutes they have.

So let’s start there.

We know from our poll with Ipsos before the last presidential debate that the coronavirus is the most important issue to voters here in 2020, and that most voters think Biden is better on the issue.