Political Debate Performance Breakdown

A breakdown of how the first political debate went down. Performances Clinton, Trump and Lester Holt were covered.

Lester Holt

Yesterday, both presidential nominees went head to head in the first debate. While much of the focus was on Secretary Clinton and Trump, the rest of the focus went to Lester Holt. The performance by the moderator was met with less than satisfactory reactions but also with high praise. On one hand many criticized Holt for “disappearing” from the debate. Some thought that he should have stepped in during heated discussions and guided the conversation more. On the other hand, many praised him for “staying out of it”. Since the main duty of the moderator is to ask the right questions and keep track of the times for each candidate, many people praised him. “I thought Lester did a great job”, said Donald Trump.

Donald Trump

The majority of news outlets are in agreement that Donald Trump’s debate performance was poor and that Hillary was the clear winner. While the up to speed fact checking was a benefit to Hillary, it was detrimental to Trump who was proven wrong about the majority of statements he made. The following day Trump came out and said that he was the winner in the debate polls, although those “polls” are basically surveys that were promoted by “Trump-friendly” sites according to NPR. Trump spent the next day trying to reframe what happened in the debate. While it seems that Trump supporters are behind him in all things he expresses, some supporters were concerned about his performance and recognize that he needs to improve before the next one.

Hillary Clinton

While most news outlets deemed Trump the loser of the debate that inevitably means that Secretary Hillary Clinton was the winner. Many people like Clinton’s daughter Chelsea and other politicians were looking forward to Secretary Clinton showing the nation who she truly was. While this was an important factor for some, another was her factuality. Clinton rarely spoke untruthfully and has a history of being one of the more truthful politicians. She stood her ground and rarely diverted from the questions being asked (which is a rare thing in political debates these days). The Atlantic said that the night belonged to her.