Not long after his anemic performance in the first presidential debate, as his poll numbers began to slide, Joe Biden had conversations with nervous donors and personally assured them his campaign was on track.

“People were raising serious questions about his ability to be very aggressive against Trump,” said one person who spoke with Biden.“He’s listening. He seems to be more sure of himself after that first fiasco. I think he realizes now that he screwed up.”

Many Democrats — including his own donors and admirers — continue to question whether he’s capable of recovering from a damaging first performance. They wonder whether he can exercise the discipline necessary to execute a debate plan on Wednesday, when several rivals will have an interest in taking him down.

Seldom has a candidate so well-equipped for a debate projected so much uncertainty.

“The big question he has to resolve is if he’s up to this thing, if he’s vigorous and if he’s engaged,” said David Axelrod, a former Obama advisor.

The American author of a bestselling Christian guide to relationships for young people has announced that his marriage is over and he has lost his faith.

Joshua Harris, whose biblical guide to relationships I Kissed Dating Goodbye sold nearly 1m copies around the world after it was published in 1997, has also apologised to LGBT+ people for contributing to a “culture of exclusion and bigotry”.

In his book, Harris, a former pastor at a US megachurch, urged young Christians to reject dating for “courtship” under the guidance of parents and observing sexual abstinence. Young couples should not kiss, hold hands or spend time alone together before marriage, he said. Dating was spiritually unhealthy and a “training ground for divorce”, the book argued.

The book, written by Harris when he was 21, was widely circulated within evangelical Christian youth groups, helping to promote a “purity culture” and vows to preserve virginity until marriage.

EL PASO, Tex. — As 20 Democrats debated on national television, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and his wife, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz, texted each other a running critique of the candidates.

This was not just another politically engaged couple talking about the 2020 race.

“You can’t help but think, ‘I could have done that better,’” Mr. Brown recalled in an interview.

“This is the first time I really thought, ‘I wish you were up there,’” Ms. Schultz told her husband. She had watched the debates in June at their home in Cleveland, while Mr. Brown, who considered but passed on a 2020 run, was in Washington, where the Senate was in session.