Why do people say that Hillary won all three debates?

[SN2903]

I actually think Trump won all 3 debates.

In Debate I Trump did enough to show he could hold his own in a debate with her. The bar was so low in the first debate for him that he exceeded expectations even if she technically may have done better on points.

Trump clearly won Debate II. Hillary had no rebuttal for the accusations about Bill and also she had weak answers about her server. Trump may have played to his base a lot in the debate but he still won the debate.

I think the third debate was actually Trump's weakest performance but that he still managed to win it because of the expectations game. Hillary never got a knockout punch against a candidate with 0 political experience in 3 debates and Trump held his own which is why he won similar to Bush vs. Gore in 2000 where Gore was much more well versed on policy matters.

[SN2903]

I actually think Trump won all 3 debates.

In Debate I Trump did enough to show he could hold his own in a debate with her. The bar was so low in the first debate for him that he exceeded expectations even if she technically may have done better on points.

Trump clearly won Debate II. Hillary had no rebuttal for the accusations about Bill and also she had weak answers about her server. Trump may have played to his base a lot in the debate but he still won the debate.


I think the third debate was actually Trump's weakest performance but that he still managed to win it because of the expectations game. Hillary never got a knockout punch against a candidate with 0 political experience in 3 debates and Trump held his own which is why he won similar to Bush vs. Gore in 2000 where Gore was much more well versed on policy matters.

The biggest mystery of the second debate was how the hell did Hillary expect to get away with using sexual morality as a campaign device? It was as if she totally forgot that her husband was at the front and center of the biggest sex scandal in American history. She probably would've had a better debate performance if she left the Access Hollywood tape alone. She gave Trump a perfect opening to call her out on hypocrisy, which gave him a clear win in the debate.

Spot on!

[SN2903]

Because the polls all overwhelmingly said she did. Even if they were significantly off, the margin was big enough that there's zero ambiguity.

The revisionist history here is getting insane.

The polls were way off base in 2016. Please. They had Trump only up 2-3 points in Ohio when he won by 9 or something like that. In Michigan they had a tightening but had her up 4-5 points and he won by .5 percent.


Rhetorically speaking, she destroyed Trump. Clearly she had a firm grasp of policy and message, while Trump sniffed loudly while making third-grade-level retorts like "Wrong." and "You're the puppet."

But by a different metric, though, how much did Clinton's debate performances help or hinder her electoral chances? How were poll questions worded? "After this debate, are you more or less likely to vote for Clinton, more or less likely to vote for Trump?" Because that's what mattered.

The first debate definitely helped her in the polls, at the very least.  After the third debate she was in solid shape.  Ultimately the debates did nothing to help Trump's electoral chances.  What helped him in the end was the natural tightening of the race, combined with the Comey letter, also combined with the polls being slightly off.

I'm not sure the polls were slightly off as much as there was about a 2% swing toward Trump post-Comey, which too late to be reflected in polling. For the period of time they were taken, they probably were accurate.

No Comey letter, and we're probably going into Month 29 of an eight-justice SCOTUS and Month 14 of Clinton impeachment hearings.

Nationally, the polls were pretty accurate, but were wrong in certain states (such as Wisconsin).  That might have more to do with the fact that Wisconsin wasn't really considered a swing state and thus wasn't polled much, though.  They were also off in Ohio and Iowa, too, though, so I think polls generally overestimated Clinton in the midwest.  They were more accurate in other places, though - I think the polling average in FL had Trump ahead by about 0.2%, and the polls actually underestimated Clinton in NV (not surprising though, with polling in that state).