today on getting answers. the drinking water of almost a million californians failed to meet state requirements,

including many in the bay area. what can be done and its presidential fight night, otherwise known as the first presidential debate. our media partner, the san francisco standard, has created a drinking game bingo card to help you get through it. but first, what is at stake in tonight's historic head to head between a sitting president and an ex president? you're watching. getting answers i'm kristen z. tonight's matchup between president biden and former president trump will be like any no others in american history. and there is noticeable energy in atlanta in the hours before the televised event, president biden made an unscheduled stop to shake hands and thank supporters on his way to cnn's studios. and former president trump also arrived in atlanta just a short time ago. and even though he has yet to announce his vice presidential pick, several potential options are gathering there to be his surrogates. uh- to audition. perhaps the two candidates are the oldest to ever compete for

the white house at a combined age of 159. they are also the first rematch, and as polls suggest, both lacking in popularity, with trump being a convicted felon. abc's jim ryan has the latest on the debate preparations. >> in just a few hours, president joe biden and former president donald trump will come face to face on the debate stage. the president has spent nearly a week at camp david holding mock debates with senior advisers to prepare for tonight's matchup. while trump has taken a different approach to debate prep, holding more than a dozen policy sessions with advisers and allies, i think i've been preparing for it for my whole life. >> if you want to know the truth, i'm not sure you can lock yourself into a room for two weeks or one week or two days and really learn what you have to know. >> biden hopes to cast trump as a threat to democracy, picking up an endorsement from former republican congressman adam kinzinger, who served on the january 6th committee. >> he is going to put the interest of the country and the interest of the people of the

country above his own interests. >> the latest fivethirtyeight ipsos poll shows inflation, immigration and political extremism are among the top issues for voters. tonight's debate will be 90 minutes long, with no studio audience. the candidates mics will be on only when it's their turn to speak. >> i'm definitely planning on watching it and kind of hearing from both sides. >> according to that latest poll, many voters expect both men to do a pretty lousy job tonight. jim ryan, abc news, dallas. >> all right, so expectations may be low, but certainly the stakes are high. so joining us live to talk more about the debate and what to expect tonight is donna crane adjunct professor of political science at san jose state university. professor crane, nice to have you on. >> great to be with you. >> so why are the stakes so high ? >> oh, well, i mean, depending on who you ask, voters on both sides of the partizan divide will tell you that the future of democracy is at stake there. everything from the supreme court to the institutions that protect our government seems to

be up for grabs. so uh- and there most of america has already decided who they like. there's just a few people in the middle who seem to be persuadable. so. so the whole race is going to hinge on what happens with those voters. and that's who both of these candidates are looking to speak directly to tonight. >> yeah, they may not be talking to us californians here or saying things that will get us excited. they're talking to those small pockets in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, georgia, maybe hoping to get those persuadables in those swing states. all right, professor crane, quickly explain the format of this debate. >> this is a very unusual format. this they have made a lot of changes from past debate, presidential debates that your viewers may be familiar with. this is going to be taking place inside a tv studio with no audience. it will be 90 minutes long, and the mics will be turned off for the person whose turn it is not to speak right. so those of us who are gluttons for punishment and either

remember or went back and rewatched the 2020 debates, may recall there was a lot of interruption, a lot of double talking, people just talking at the same time. it was impossible to hear what anybody was trying to say there. hopefully this will cut down on that, so this debate is going to look really this format is going to look really different. there's one thing worth saying, though, i'm wondering if maybe these format changes are going to work to donald trump's advantage, because to the extent that he's seen as a person who's interrupting, who's bullying, who's domineering, the tools that he uses to do that won't be as available to him in this format tonight. >> right? i and i remember 2016, too, right? with hillary clinton. certainly the talking over her interrupting a lot. right. and this time his mic will be off. but this is what's interesting though. let's say his time is up. his mic will be off. and same for biden. and whatever you say will not be heard by your opponent, right? or by the audience at home, but your opponent actually, because there are only a few feet away, they may hear. so i don't know

how might that affect things? i mean, you can still get mad at the other guy for the things he says after his mic is off. >> yeah, that's right. and that's something else, you know, for sort of a masterclass in what i'm looking for something else i have on my, you know, on my checklist is, is either of the candidates able to get under the skin of the other? because if you can provoke them, then you might sort of force an error, right. the public who's watching these debates isn't really doesn't care as much as political insiders do about gaffes. but there are sometimes moments that are revealing. so, you know, joe biden is sort of famously protective and defensive about his family. and i'm i know that trump knows that we've seen trump poke him about his son, and also, donald trump is so unpredictable and so, so explosive in his personality that if biden can get under trump's skin, you know, we it's not so much the gamesmanship of it as it is. maybe there will be

a moment that sort of revealing about these candidates character or character or their values. i think that's what people are wondering if they might see. >> okay, so success in these things often means leaving voters with something super memorable, right? or or something that reassures them about your vulnerability. like, that's not really a problem, or cast doubt on the other guy for the thing that he's weak for. so given what we know about these two, what do you think you know success would look like for biden and trump? what would they want to hammer on, well, the first way, the first way i would define success for either of these men is if they exceed expectations about their demeanor. each of them has a sort of a demeanor or a command of stage problem, joe biden, the narrative about joe biden is that he's old and he's not in command of his space or of the material. so if he, if he is if he if he if the joe biden who spoke at the state of the union, for example, shows up tonight, i think he's going to exceed expectations. and that's a win for him. if donald trump behaves

in any way that's, you know, respectful presidential, not his sort of usual demeanor that's going to be seen as a win for him, and then another way to win, so to speak, is to prevent voters present voters with new information. if they come away with a new fact or a way they hadn't thought about an issue before, that's another way to win, the last way to win this debate for either of them is to give voters the sense that i'm the person who cares about people like you, that i, i am more relatable to you. so those are the three big tests that i think we should be watching for. >> okay, but do presidential debates truly move voters? maybe you can give us an example in history, when big presidential debate moments shifted somebody's fortunes, you know, forever, scholars have tried to understand the extent to which presidential debates might move voters. >> the most classic example is

the kennedy nixon debate, where people in the room thought that nixon won it because he had a better command of the material. but people outside of the room, thought that that definitely that kennedy kennedy was the winner. he was he was smooth. he appeared great on tv. he was telegenic, he was young, he was charismatic. so that's that's an example, but you know, there are a couple of different ways that this, this debate can influence voters. classically, we think of just five moments in a campaign that are critical. it's the conventions, the three debates, and the selection of vice president. so this is up there historically in terms of having impact. what there isn't a lot of is a primary impact, right? there won't be a lot of people watching and consuming the content here, but there will be a secondary impact. how is the debate perceived? how is it processed? what kind of memes show up on social media? how is it processed by the analysts? yes. people may not watch the

debate tonight, but they won't really be able to avoid the spin and the narrative over the next 48, 72 hours, this is a this is an opportunity for these campaigns to frame what's at stake in this election. and that will be influential. >> right? you mentioned, you know, the opportunities to move voters, one of them being the vice presidential pick. some people are wondering who could trump do a 2 in 1 tonight. you know, could he announce his vice presidential running mate. because he did ask the three guys who are always talked about to the location to be his surrogates. but you never know. it could be one of those miss america here she is kind of things, okay. but quickly, i got to let you go. but really wondering. the next debate isn't for a few months, right? so this is really only one of the few opportunities. just give us a sense for what you think the meme might be that comes out of this, i think they're going to get under each other's skin, when i look back at the 2020 debates, the first one was a free for all. and the second one was much more professional. if this pattern holds, then then

we're in for, you know, we should buckle our seat belts tonight. >> you're right. the second one is one. you fix the mistakes made the first time, so we'll see. donna crane, adjunct professor of political science at san jose state university. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> and you can watch the presidential debate right here on abc seven tonight. coverage starts at 5:00. and the cnn presidential debate begins at six. up next, drinking water that fails to meet the standards for contaminants. it's a problem in california, as we learn hundreds of water systems, including some in the bay area, are not making the grade. more on that when getting

almost are living in areas where the drinking water isn't meeting state safety and reliability standards. this map shows you bay area communities where the water is either failing or at risk of failing to meet the requirements. failing is in red and at risk is in orange. you can see a number of dots, especially clustered around santa rosa, santa cruz, and antioch. joining us live now to talk about this is darren polhemus, deputy director of the division of drinking water at the state water board. darren, thank you for joining us. >> oh my pleasure. >> i gave a couple of numbers there, but explain the key findings of this recent report and how many water systems we're talking about. >> yeah. on average generally we're talking about, 350 to 370 water systems throughout the state that are, failing to meet our water quality standards as we measure them with the human right to water tool that we use, there's also approximately another 600 that we consider at

risk of failing at any time. so you can see there's quite a load these are all really small water systems, a couple hundred connections up to maybe a thousand connections that tend to be in this category. >> what are the most common contaminants, contaminants found and what kind of a health risk do they pose? >> yeah, our most common contaminants in california would be, nitrates, being usually the number one, nitrates are usually from, ag fertilizer use, they can also be from septic tanks and other types of discharges, so those pose a threat of, acute risk to really young children. and pregnant women, so we are very cautious about those and make sure that, the proper noticing goes out for those. second would be arsenic, arsenic is a naturally occurring mineral that, we have here in california, largely from our

geology. and a lot of water systems can pick that up in the groundwater that they use, that one represents a chronic health threat of stomach cancer and other things at high levels. if a for long term exposure, the people are that are exposed and drinking it for an extended period of time. >> okay. i mean, that is definitely serious. and that's why this is an important conversation i want to bring up that map again, because i want folks in the bay area to get another look at the areas where they seem to be most concentrated in the bay area. based on what you just told me about the causes, can you explain why these particular areas? i mean, they do seem to be more rural for the most part, is that does that have something to do with it? >> yes. rural and smaller systems that are unable to, you know, afford the types and levels of treatment that are needed, they may have only one well, or two wells. and when you only have 200 or so customers paying into a water system, it can be difficult for them. to afford the level of treatment. and you know, it's one of those

inverse curves where the smaller the system, kind of the more expensive per household, the treatment ends up being you don't get an economy of scale. and so they they pay a higher fee and cost associated with addressing that, which is a big reason we spend a lot of time trying to join small water systems together. we have, consolidation and regionalization programs to try to get them to that economy of scale that can better serve the customers in their area. >> and is there a tie between where the water is at most at risk for failing and socio economic disadvantages of the population? >> absolutely. so our data shows that, when you look at, failing water systems, 50, 56% of the failing systems are disadvantaged communities and 67 are communities that are majority, communities of color. these communities are either

disenfranchized and have seen, you know, lack of investment over the years. and so, it is a particular problem in california when we analyze this data. >> can i just ask you what the trend is? i mean, you said, you know, under a million people, right? 300 something water systems. is it getting worse or is it getting better? and i also think about climate change and wonder if that's affecting things. >> yeah. >> well climate change is definitely affecting things to take that part first, as we see our climate adjust and, rainfall patterns change, we see much earlier water systems and a larger number of water systems that face drought stress, with receding groundwater tables, lack of surface water, creeks that you know, are flowing less during latter parts of summer. so that is definitely, of concern, and i'm sorry, i forgot your first question. yeah. >> no, i just wonder if the situation is in general getting worse, right? >> yeah, definitely. so the situation, isn't getting worse.

so we what we kind of show from the data is that we've had about 300 to 350 failing water systems for quite some time. okay. so the problem is, is that as we work to solve each one of those problems systems, another one fails on us. and so we've kind of been more like treading water, and we know that we have with the 600 some systems that are ready to fail at any minute. we have a large number to try to get ahead on. >> so, darren, in the super short amount of time we have remaining, my question is, well, it's another two parter, but what can we do right. both. if you live in one of those communities and then from a policy level, what would you like to see happen? >> yeah. so if you live in one of those communities, we really need to think beyond just maintaining your small little system. it'd be nice to contemplate how to join the systems around you and become a much more efficient type of water system. that's really key, especially up in the sonoma area where there's really way too

many small water systems that are right next door to each other and really should join together. to become something bigger, in the long term, we really need to contemplate financial assistance to help them get to that more efficient state. >> all right. perhaps some state lawmaker types are listening to this conversation right now. darren polhemus, thank you so much for joining us. >> you're welcome. >> thank you. up next, raising the fun factor on the presidential debate. our media partner, the san francisco standard, has designed a bingo game to help you follow along while having a good time. no matter what

debate. as we already told you at the top of the show, we are just a few hours away from president biden and former president trump going head to head. and now our media partners at the san francisco standard have found a way to keep it interesting. they've created a presidential debate drinking

bingo game, and they explained the big cheeky idea in this new article. it's a fun way to follow along and help you get through the night. when i heard cheeky, i thought must be astrid kane and indeed astrakhan, the standards senior culture reporter joins us live now. hey, how's it going? the cheekiest right. so, so happy to have you here because this is so fun, and here it is. voila. the bingo card. what's the big idea behind this? >> well, no one actually knows what topics cnn has chosen for tonight's debate. it's been kept a secret, so we had to guess somehow. and rather than just guess the topics we thought we would try to guess the responses or the gaffes or the truly weird things that might happen to make for some really compelling live tv tonight. we don't know. >> so super creative mind came, you know, came up with, give me a couple of your favorites scenarios that, well, you know, there's the one about, quote wind turbines kill birds. >> wind turbines give you

cancer. so and so might use wind turbines to control your thoughts, etc. you know, that was that was one of our better ones, i think. okay okay. >> okay. so, let's figure out how we play this, right? i mean, i guess the, the way you're supposed to play as you originally envisioned is you watch it and you drink or how is this really for like a group, you know, everybody. >> you want the camaraderie rather than the, like, cutthroat competition. >> it's going to be because i'm a cutthroat type of person. >> i knew, i know, i know right? >> i decided to make this competitive. so adapted your game. >> i don't see any stoli on the table, but i'll play along with you. >> okay. play along. so we each circled eight things that we think are most likely to happen right in this debate. and so i circle mine in yellow and astro. hold yours up if you don't mind. so you got blue. and just so our viewers know, you know how crazy we kind of are here. i'll just. oh, there's yours. okay. i think we actually picked a lot of the same ones. we're really similar folks, right? yes, we both picked that, and we both picked any shout out to san francisco or oakland whatsoever. it could be positive or negative, right? >> right. trump menacingly

approaching the biden podium. >> oh and this one. yes no. >> you try to ban tiktok because they kind of both did the. exactly. and do we get oh oh my god we differed on this. i thought we would here. would you shut up man. i mean biden kind of goes i thought about that one. >> and i was like that is a time tested like zinger from the 2020 debate. and if i were the biden camp, i would try to not have him repeat himself because it would seem not only a little cringe to do the same joke twice, but also he's trying to present the fact that he's mentally nimble and maybe not say the same thing again. >> okay, and you chose a good one that i actually wish i had chosen. but i didn't. it's the one under free. yeah. >> oh convicted felon. i think that one's going to come up like 15 times like. of course. so if you are drinking at home, please drink responsibly. maybe like one out of every three references. max don't don't you know, lose it. i mean, you can switch to like, diet coke if you like. you might want a chaser. yeah, yeah. this is water. no

one would know. >> you're right. that one's going to come up with a lot. a lot we both selected cringe mid-debate tweet from san francisco elected official that i would say is the one that i'm the most personally invested in. >> i would actually be refreshing x throughout the entire debate, because i do think someone local might pop off unwisely and then maybe delete it. or the deleted tweets are always the best. >> yeah. totally. totally. also, you also chose this corner, the right top corner. >> i did you know that was a gamble on my part because i think the way this debate is structured, their mics will be muted very thoroughly and judiciously. yeah. so that's why i also picked that trump might menacingly approach biden, because if he is muted, he has no choice to exert kind of dominance except in his physical presence. yeah, we'll just see. >> and i noticed neither one of us chose this one reference to something no one born after 1959 will get, although i suspect that could that could happen. >> i think that one could happen. although if i were either candidate's adviser, i would be. that would be like the thing i don't want the most, right?

>> right. i mean, don't remind people that your combined age of 159, right? >> is that true? >> yeah. >> yeah, i think you're right. yeah. >> 81 plus 78. yeah. that's almost four times our combined age. i think so, or maybe maybe five times because we're so young like that. this is so fun. and, you know, i love that you guys do things like this because you're really trying on a broader level to make political, the political process engaging and fun. >> it is. and you pay attention. this debate could go one of two ways, right? it could be genuinely entertaining, or it could be profoundly tedious. and we wanted to make sure that it was fun no matter what. >> okay, well, you can get your own printable official san francisco standard presidential debate drinking bingo card on the website where astrid's article is. i encourage you to check it out. super fun and super creative. and then we'll have to compare notes to see who won tomorrow, who got the most out of the eight it's on. okay, you can check out astrid's story and find that link. as we mentioned on the standards website sf standard.com. we'll

abc news, prime with linsey davis at eight for live post-debate coverage and analysis. then wheel of fortune and jeopardy at nine and 930. and stay with us for a special edition of abc seven news at ten and 11. thanks for watching. getting answers. we'll see you again at 4:00. in the meantime, stick around for world news tonight with david muir. have a good one. tonight, the historical presidential debate a short time from now. we'll carry it on abc live. president biden and former president trump about to face off in atlanta. president biden