Last week was ultimately centred around the US Presidential Election. It started with an article on the lack of tax that President Donald Trump has paid and finished with the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces testing positive for COVID-19.
In the middle of this we had our first televised debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. While the debates are important to see how the candidates handle each other, it is the spin put on afterwards that really matters. Not to committed voters though, as they will not change their views; the spin is purely directed at the undecided voters.
Voters in the US are extremely polarised; you are either staunch Democrat or staunch Republican. Therefore, the debates and stories are targeted towards the floating voters, which is estimated to be around 10% of the voting population. So, do debates and stories matter? It does when the most recent US presidential elections were won on such narrow margins, so albeit small the floating vote is still large enough to affect the outcome of the race to the White House.
With the vote less than a month away, both candidates will be looking to gain as much airtime as possible. This is now complicated with President Trump having contracted COVID-19, putting future televised debates in jeopardy.
It is not just the President who has tested positive; many Republican Senators have also caught COVID-19, meaning the Senate will not be able to vote on any proposals for the next two weeks. This will delay the proposed fiscal stimulus package, which needs to be voted upon in the Senate, and could result in fear creeping back into the economy.