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Among the 100 million viewers there were at least two groups, viewers like you and me who know the issues and have made our decision and nothing is going to budge us from our support for Trump. Likewise those who support Hillary are unlikely to be disabused of their error.

The second group consists of people were not really interested in politics who are unfamiliar with the issues because they simply don't care much about the issues or they would already have been informed. If they vote, they will vote on a general impression of the demeanor of the candidate they see on television during the debate. It matters not to them who is better on the issues it only matters who appears to be in command of the issues. Even more important, it matters who looks presidential, who has the gravitas, who can they see as their president.

It's the second group, the persuadable, the undecideds, the potential voters who are relatively uninformed, who will decide this election.

All Trump had to do to preserve his momentum and win the election was look presidential but instead he interrupted, he cried about unfairness, he was petulant, he smirked, and he fought with the moderator, a no-win endeavor.

Judging from the test of what must a candidate due to advance his or her chances, Hillary stands the best chance of having improved her position.

First Trump was working on undecided and Democrats. Your opinion of how Trump came across is not supported by any evidence outside left wing sources, not in almost all polls, not in social media, not anywhere but the Trump-haters.

People want an outsider not another polished lawyer politician. Hillary cannot win legitimately, she does not have the support of the people.

Fact is Hillary went into the debate with high expectations and behind in the polls. She needed to take Trump out decisively. She failed. As such no matter your opinion of Trump’s boorishness, he did what he needed to do, scored many long term take-away points and did not harm himself.

The points that Hillary is all talk no action will stick; the point Democrats ignore blacks for the 4 years between elections to suffer will stick; the point Americans are in danger because Hillary with Obama created ISIS will stick, the point she lies so easy will stick; etc.

The points you make have been hammered in hundreds of millions of dollars worth of attack ads- obviously they are not harming him.

Personally while I agree with your analysis of Trump’s performance, surprisingly it does not appear others do.

First, as you say the CNN snap poll gave the nod to Clinton last night, but that was the only one. All the other snap polls had Trump as the winner some by impressive margins and of those decisive margins, only one was from a source that would be biased towards Trump (Drudge). The others were from MSM sources, and still had margins of 10, 15 even one had 20%, IIRC. An illustrative graphic of all those polls was posted earlier today but I don’t have it or I’d post it. I could find it if required.

Snap polls aren’t particularly useful for much except to show enthusiasm for a candidate however unless one posits the existence of Trump bots flooding the online polls with yes votes (an unlikely scenario) the results of those polls were quite dramatic. And surprising, again given your objective analysis which I believe to be correct.

Also there is the one post-debate poll, conducted more rigorously than a simple online poll, out today that also shows Trump resonated with the voters. See here: https://www.scribd.com/mobile/document/325456792/National-Poll-September-26-2016-Post-Debate-Poll

In question after question Trump scored favorably, save a few questions, and outside the margin of error.

I agree with your analysis; after watching the debate I went to bed disappointed with his performance. But again, surprisingly, it does not seem that others share our opinion of his debate. For whatever reason it seems Clinton did indeed tank, even though she had all the “right” answers and appeared more in control of the situation.

Apparently people really are fed up with the polished politician. And are willing to give Trump a lot of latitude for this reason.