In the aftermath of Thursday’s presidential debate, as Jill Biden led President Joe Biden off the stage, former Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, raised what she called a "hard and heartbreaking” question.

"You have to ask,’’ she said on MSNBC, "how did we get here?”

Barely seven weeks before Democrats gather in Chicago to formally nominate Biden for a second term, the Democratic Party is in crisis.