Good news for Hillary Clinton: Many pundits say you won the final debate. Good news for Donald Trump: A lot of them say it was close. Good news for America: You'll never have to watch these two debate again. The showdown in Vegas turned out to be a more policy-focused affair than the first two debates, though there was no shortage of angry exchanges—and coverage is being dominated by Trump's refusal to commit to accepting the election results. A roundup of debate reactions:
- Both candidates turned in their best performance of the three debates, according to Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, who declares Clinton the winner. "She finally figured out the right calibration of ignoring and engaging Trump," he writes, while Trump's answer on accepting election results "was a total disaster and will be the only thing people are talking about coming out of the debate."
- For a few minutes early on, "we had something like a normal debate," with candidates setting out familiar policy positions, writes Arthur C. Brooks at the New York Times. But as the evening went on, "concrete solutions mostly disappeared and the tone became far more biting and sarcastic. The candidates were openly contemptuous and disrespectful of each other," he writes, declaring the only winner to be the "grim status quo" of this election.