The first debate is in the books and most of the punditry is in agreement with who won. Hillary Clinton dealt with some nerves in the beginning of the debate, but got into a groove later on and looked much more comfortable than Donald Trump did. From FOX News to MSNBC, almost all the experts agreed that she seemed more calm, cool, and collected and delivered better answers to the topics at hand than Trump.
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TRUMP’S MOMENT
After some obvious nerves from both candidates, Trump gave one of his eloquent answers on the topic of race relations in the US but quickly blew his chance to make lasting marks. Trump described the situation of many minorities in America pretty vividly in what definitely seemed like rehearsed remarks, but erred majorly when discussing what to do in order to make minority neighborhoods safer.
Trump advocated the use of stop-and-frisk in crime-riddled neighborhoods, a tactic that has been ruled unconstitutional by courts. The ruling found that stop-and-frisk was not only an invasion of privacy, but unfair on the ground that it led to racial profiling of minorities. His continued insistence upon implementing this likely struck a nerve among African American voters, particularly in this time of increased awareness because of the continuing protests against police violence throughout the country.
THE INTERRUPTION GAME
Early on it was clear that Trump would try to knock Clinton off her game by continuing to interrupt her and mumbling comments under his breath. The hope was that Clinton would take the bait and roll around in the mud with him, obfuscating some of the issues at hand, but she pressed on and was rewarded in the end.
Trump was flustered by Clinton’s ability to stay calm and interrupted her three times, and repeatedly said “Wrong” into the microphone if he had a particular point of contention with one of her statements. This came on the same night that Trump incredulously said that he had a better temperament than Clinton did, but his actions don’t jive well with that line of thinking.
LESTER HOLT
Heading into the debate, there were plenty of questions about how Holt would manage his role as the moderator. A few short weeks ago, Matt Lauer held an informal Commander-In-Chief Forum with military members and he was crucified in the media for not following up with Trump on some of his more questionable claims.
Holt proved that he was not going to make the same mistake Lauer did early on, by asking Clinton directly about her use of a private e-mail server during her time as Secretary of State. Shortly after, Holt asked Trump point blank whether or not he will ever release his tax returns and later challenged him on his claims that he was against the War in Iraq and his assertions that Barack Obama was not born in America.
If there’s one area where Holt performed poorly, it was in keeping the candidates on schedule with time. He never tried to stop a candidate from going past the time limit and was talked over repeatedly when trying to move on from a contentious topic. All in all though, Holt received great marks for his performance.
WHAT WILL THE POLLS SAY?
It will take a few days until we start seeing polling data that tells us how most people viewed the debate. Generally speaking, the challenger or underdog gets a boost after taking the stage, but Trump’s performance wasn’t good. It’s tricky to determine how much a debate can influence an election, and while the first debate likely didn’t definitively shift the scales, I think it’s likely that Clinton gets a small boost in support.
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