Who Won in New York?

Hundreds, thousands, millions, and of course billions. Those aren’t just numbers. Donald Trump began several of the lies he told during Monday night’s debate with those figures. No one should be surprised by Trump’s debate performance which was marked by the bravado characteristic of many wealthy white men, but make no mistake, a well-prepared Hillary Clinton demonstrably defeated him.

Contrary to one of Trump’s statements, Clinton definitely looked presidential. The permanent split screen showed her consistent composure while Trump spewed untruths about her. He, on the other hand, didn’t benefit from said split-screen. At times Donald sighed, swayed and looked physically unhinged by Hillary’s comments which played right into her claim that he lacks the temperament for the highest job in our nation.

Here are some of the highlights that need to be discussed if we are to talk about winners and losers from the first Presidential debate:

Hillary came colorfully prepared for the email response. Her full throated apology took the air out of the email trap Trump tried to set.

Hillary’s response to Trump’s claim that “stop and frisk” wasn’t unconstitutional was remarkable. She wisely bypassed the damning statistics of how bad “stop and frisk” really was as a policy. Instead, she used the moment to explain the necessity for gun reform and other policies that do not target folk based on race. This left Trump in the uncomfortable position of arguing a point that a New York Supreme Court has already rule as unconstitutional because of racial profiling all while he is trying to court the Black vote. Coupled with the fact that Trump kept referring to Black neighborhoods as third-world war zones, I’m not my sure how minority voters will respond to such a reckless claim.

Hillary will also benefit from the fact checks that will occur over the next week when news outlets all over the country juxtapose Trump’s comments from the debates with his previous statements. A perfect one is the fact that he quoted how bad the economy is in Michigan and Ohio, but both of those states have unemployment rates lower that the 4.9% national average (4.5%, 4.7% respectively). He failed to mention the news that Ford is building three new factories in Michigan.

Trump’s arrogance may have—for the first time—during this campaign caused serious damage to his presidential candidacy. With more than 100 million people watching, his statements about women, lack of depth on foreign relations, refusal to release his tax returns, his petty responses and willingness to defend Russia (he really did defend Russia regarding allegations of email hacking) could prove too outlandish for the American electorate.

Someone in his camp needs to tell him that winning the Republican nomination is not like winning a general election especially when the only road to the White House is through a coalition of diverse voters. There will be those who argue that Trump was rude, childlike, and unprepared for the Republican debates. And to those people I will simply remind you that even though Trump likes to brag that he received more votes than any candidate in the history of the Republican primaries (around 13-14 million), I would argue that fact is less impressive than the fact that he also received the most votes against him in a primary ever, not just Republican, but any party (more than 15 million).

Trump lost the first debate of the season. Hillary at times seemed controlled and over-rehearsed, but neither changed the fact that last night she seemed to be in a different league than her male counterpart.  It’s also not a small fact that she is the first woman ever to represent a major party and stand at the podium, vying to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. Congrats Hillary on a great job at the debate and normalizing the idea that women, too, can lead a nation.