Readers don’t need me to know that Clinton won the third debate, making her 3-0 in debates. Trump’s performance improved from complete joke (in previous debates) to passable control of his face and mouth for the first half hour, to typical ranting, run on, and dumb insults for the last hour. Clinton really hit him on Putin. “No you’re the puppet” says Trump showing that he has mastered the debate skills of a six-year old. Clinton also hit him on not accepting the election results which also dominated the post debate coverage, casting a further unfavorable light on Trump.

Clinton really is a good debater. She gives answers that show her policy knowledge but also controls her emotions while maintaining her focus under pressure.  It’s not easy to just keep talking while someone interrupts and also know when to yield and make your opponent look overly aggressive.  She’s better at debates then Gore or Dukakis.   It is not fair to say she is only winning this election because of Trump. (Trump is a weak opponent, but Clinton would have been competitive with several other Republican nominees.) The “nasty woman” quip some how makes Trump look even worse than before with respect to women.

My personal hunch is that Clinton will win by Obama’s 2008 margin of  about 7.5 percent. It could easily be more. I don’t see any way she could lose short of incapacitating illness.  (Even then voters would essentually be picking Kaine over Trump and would probably choose the Dem ticket.)

If Clinton wins by 7-8 percent, I expect the Dems to retake the Senate and could easily take 5 or 6 of the closest races giving them up to 53 seats. They would make gains in the house but probably fall short of taking control.  For control, Clinton probably has to win by double digits which is possible.

In my next post I will speculate on whether Trump might deliberately sabotage the down ballot Republicans.