Can Biden get the whole Democratic family on board tonight?

So it begins. President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump have descended upon Atlanta for the first presidential debate.

So far, Trump’s supporters have spread the idea that the 81-year-old president will be hopped up on drugs. Indeed, the former president parroted these lines, saying that his opponent will be “jacked up” on drugs and will get “a shot in the a**.”

Republicans on the Hill are also sticking to the line.

“I think that while Biden has been hanging out in the basement hiding off so he can prepare for this debate and look at all the medical enhancements that he can to try and keep him awake during this, I think that you've seen what President Trump's been doing,” Representative Cory Mills of Florida told The Independent.

There is no evidence Biden is getting a prescription for uppers ahead of the debate. In truth, the debate is the shot in the arm that Biden needs to fix his flailing campaign. It’s why Biden decided to eschew the typical presidential debate schedule organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates and took the fight directly to Trump by challenging him earlier than the normal fall schedule.

Biden--like Ronald Reagan before him--faces questions about whether his age will impede his ability to do the job. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday showed Biden down against Trump 49 to 45 percent.

His allies in Congress have different pieces of advice. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi told The Independent on Wednesday that Biden needed to “be himself,” advice repeated by fellow Delawarean Lisa Blunt Rochester, who is running for Senate in Biden’s home state.

But Biden’s biggest weakness at the moment is with young voters, an essential voting bloc in the Democratic