The first night of Democratic debates might have been missing key members of the race, but that didn't stop a surprisingly large audience from tuning in.

A total of 15.3 million viewers watched Wednesday night's debate between NBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo, CNN reports. That number comes from Nielsen, although it doesn't factor in those who streamed the debate online.

CNN points out that this figure comes close to breaking the all-time record for most-watched Democratic primary debate previously set in October 2015, when the Democratic debate of that election cycle scored 15.5 million viewers.

But that debate featured the race's front-runner, Hillary Clinton. Wednesday's debate impressively came close to matching those numbers despite the absence of many of the 2020 candidates who are leading in the polls, especially former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Even NBC was surprised by this, as executives had privately said they didn't expect more than 10 million people to tune in, CNN reports; their thinking reportedly was that it was too early in the race for there to be such intense interest, not to mention that it's the summer. In the end, they were very happily proven wrong.

Still, these numbers aren't even in the same ballpark as the first 2016 Republican primary debate, which featured President Trump's debate debut and drew a huge 24 million viewers.

Both Biden and Sanders will participate in the second night of debates on Thursday evening, alongside Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg among others. With the presence of these high-profile candidates, it could be that Thursday's debate may match, or exceed, the previous record. It seems that although President Trump dissed Wednesday's affair as "BORING," America disagrees. Brendan Morrow

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has taken a step toward revealing his Supreme Court plans.

The last-minute nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has raised allegations from Democrats that Republicans are unfairly gaming the system. It has also led some Democrats to suggest Biden either expand and pack the court with liberal justices if he's elected, or adopt term limits to replace the current lifetime appointments.

Biden has so far refused to give a decisive answer on how he'll handle the courts if he wins next week's election. But on Monday, Biden did reveal a bit of his plan, saying "it's a lifetime appointment. I'm not going to attempt to change that at all."

Last month, three Democrats in the House introduced a bill to instill 18-year term limits on Supreme Court justices, granting presidents two nominees during each of their terms. Biden has brushed off questions about whether he will support expanding and packing the court, saying he'll give an answer when the election is over. Kathryn Krawczyk

There's been a lot of debate over who should be regarded as President Trump's most accurate historical parallel, and New York's Jonathan Chait suggested Monday that former President Herbert Hoover may be the most apt comparison, at least right now.

Hoover was in office in 1929 when the stock market crashed, ushering in the Great Depression, and his reaction to the economic catastrophe was similar to Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic, Chait argues.

Just as Trump has tried to assure Americans the virus will dissipate and the country has things under control, Hoover expressed unwarranted optimism that the depression was over years before the situation improved. But what really binds the two, Chait writes, is their reliance on markets to solve their respective issues. Hoover believed the economy would rebound as consumer confidence grew, and therefore he remained a proponent of maintaining the "fiscal soundness of the monetary supply and the federal budget."

Trump, on the other hand, has flirted with spending big to keep things afloat economically during the crisis, Chait notes, but he argues the president ultimately failed to "reclaim his populist identity" and gave into the GOP's "anti-spending impulse" heading into the election. Chait anticipates the Republican Party will blame Trump's "erratic and undisciplined personal behavior" if he fails to win his re-election bid, but he also said the president "sacrificed himself on the Hooverite altar of laissez-faire" economics. Read Chait's full argument at New York. Tim O'Donnell

Black Americans have been overwhelmingly hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic. That's even more true for Black health care workers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data Monday revealing about one in every 16 Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 have been health care personnel. Even though just 10 percent of all American nurses and 5 percent of doctors are Black, more than half of those hospitalized health care workers have been Black.

The CDC data also reveals that of those health care workers who were hospitalized coronavirus, more than a third were nurses. Around three quarters of those hospitalized were under age 57, calling into question claims that COVID-19 is harmless for younger people.

Black Americans, who make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, are 4.7 times more likely than whites to be hospitalized with COVID-19, CDC data from August showed. They're also twice as likely to die of the virus than white Americans, and have the highest chance of any racial or ethnic group of dying of the coronavirus. That's likely due to health care and economic inequities that have hurt Black Americans for decades. Kathryn Krawczyk

With just over a week to go until Election Day, Twitter has rolled out a new feature to combat voting misinformation on its platform.

The company on Monday launched new messages that will appear on the top of users' news feeds, which Twitter is referring to as "pre-bunks," NBC News reports. As the name suggests, the idea is to pre-emptively debunk inaccurate voting information that users may come across, as opposed to responding to specific posts.

A message that rolled out on Monday warned users that they "might encounter misleading information about voting by mail" but that "election experts confirm that voting by mail is safe and secure, even with an increase in mail-in ballots." Users can click a button to find out more. This is the first such message Twitter is rolling out, and the next one set to launch on Wednesday will be about "the timing of election results," NBC News says.

This is the latest step Twitter is taking ahead of the election after earlier this month announcing it would be adding "additional warnings and restrictions" to certain tweets containing misleading information, as well as urging users to quote-tweet rather than retweet and slowing down "how quickly tweets from accounts and topics you don't follow can reach you." Twitter has also said that it will label tweets "that falsely claim a win for any candidate" in the election.

Facebook has similarly announced some pre-election measures, such as its decision not to accept new political ads in the week before Election Day. Facebook, according to The Wall Street Journal, is also discussing the possibility of having to roll out "emergency measures" and slow "the spread of viral content" in the case of "dire circumstances, such as election-related violence." Brendan Morrow

Jason Lewis, the Republican candidate challenging incumbent Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) for her seat in the upper chamber, underwent "successful and minimally invasive" emergency surgery Monday.

Lewis, a one-term congressman whose 2018 re-election bid failed, was rushed into surgery after he was diagnosed with a severe internal hernia. His campaign said the condition was potentially life-threatening if not treated quickly. Fortunately it was, and Lewis' campaign manager, Tom Syzmanski, said doctors anticipate he could be released from the hospital within the next few days.

Smith, who polls suggest is favored to win the race, sent a tweet out wishing Lewis "a successful surgery and speedy recovery" earlier in the day. Read more at The Associated Press and The Hill. Tim O'Donnell

Hillary Clinton has no plans to come out of the woods.

With Election Day less than a week away, the Clinton is doing everything she can to stop Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris from repeating her fate. But in contrast to a common motivation for boosting a campaign, Clinton wants no role in a potential Biden presidency, she told The New York Times' Kara Swisher in a podcast aired Monday.

Throughout this election, Clinton has stayed out of ads and the public eye for the Democratic party — probably wisely, considering how contentious the 2016 election was. She's instead focusing on fundraising events for Biden, as well as Democratic House and Senate races. And she's convinced it will pay off, to the point that she won't even "entertain the idea" of Trump winning again. "It makes me literally sick to my stomach to think that we'd have four more years of this abuse and destruction of our institutions, and damaging of our norms and our values, and lessening of our leadership, and the list goes on," Clinton said.

Clinton's vision of a Biden/Harris administration is clearer. She'll be happy to "answer any questions they have" and "provide any information that they need," Clinton said — generally to act as an outside "counselor," as Swisher put it. But "No, I don’t want a job" within the administration, Clinton said. "I just want to be able to exhale." Read Clinton's whole interview at The New York Times. Kathryn Krawczyk