I think we were all looking for the knockout punch, but I think the general public saw that on 9/11. What they were looking for at this point was to determine whether or not Donald Trump is “presidential”. Trump took Hillary to the woodshed on economics and America First during the first half hour. After that the moderator and Hillary tried to tag team him on a bunch of stuff that is really not relevant to regular people’s lives (the birth certificate, whether or not Trump thought some women were fat and unattractive (let’s face it, some women are - and a lot of men are too), whether or not Trump paid his “fair share” in taxes.
On the issues that are really important in this election (National Security, unfair trade agreements, loss of manufacturing and service jobs to outsourcing and importing of H1B job stealers, infrastructure, the military) Donald wiped the floor with her.
If you turned off the debate after the first hour (I was really tempted to do that myself) then Trump was magnificent and hillary was completely unmatched. But after they tag teamed Trump with stuff nobody really cares about, Trump came off looking a bit frazzled. On the issues that count, Trump won hands down. On the issues that nobody cares about, Clinton had the upper hand assisted by Lester Holt (who apparently got his questions from the Clinton campaign headquarters).
So when you clear out all the fog, Trump was clearly the winner.
Let’s see how the polls react.
Except on the Iraq war. I've had time to think about Trump's defense of his Iraq position. Even though it was the exact opposite of where I was at the time, I think he is right to defend the truth about himself. Many are taking him to task for spending all that time specifically showing Holt and Clinton to be wrong.
First, it proves they were wrong.
Second, it makes Trump the balanced candidate in comparison to Trump.
Third, it makes Clinton the warmonger given her wars in Libya, Egypt, Syria, her vote for the Iraq invasion, her support for confronting Putin, and her absolutely horrendous work arming ISIS and al Qaeda.
She is PROVABLY now the one most likely to get us into war.