Melbourne University School of Social and Political Sciences academic Dr Raymond Orr has spoken to SBS about the major talking points from the second US presidential debate from St Louis, Missouri.
He also outlined what we could see at the third, and final, debate on October 19.
Who won the second presidential debate?
"Donald Trump fared better than he did in the first debate, but not accounting for different expectations, Hillary Clinton won," Dr Orr said.
"It was a better performance by Trump than the last debate, where he looked tired and couldn’t go well beyond 30 minutes and still make sense."
Related reading
'Trump failed to show the empathy needed to win the debate'
Did we see anything new in this debate that we hadn't seen previously in the US presidential race?
"Some people would have been exposed to Hillary Clinton’s accomplishment as a senator and the secretary-of-state. She probably did well in describing the things she was responsible for, or that she facilitated as a representative and an administrator.
"For Trump, nothing major came out. Maybe something new was that he would like to put Hillary in jail if elected. It was funny, it wasn’t a high moment, but a little bit cheeky.”
What could we possibly see in the next debate that we haven’t seen already?
"With this campaign it’s especially hard to predict what will happen next because the news cycle and stories have been so volatile. Perhaps we could return to Trump's taxes, but I don’t know how much worse it could get for him - being already painted as a misogynist and a tax evader.
"Conceivably there may be documents leaked about Clinton’s activities as secretary of state, but they would’ve already been leaked already."
With all the controversy surrounding this race for the White House, have you ever seen anything like this before?
“I’ve only read about it, not seen it in the past 25 years. The last time we hit this patch in our green was at the beginning of the republic. You would have duels and accusations against people’s lives.
"The interesting thing to look at is, the rhetoric is bad now, we haven’t seen a death in the presidential election for about 100 years. But this time around, is there going to be violence on election day?"
With the release of audio where Trump made lewd comments about women, can he recover from this?
"He was fading in the polls weeks ago. Whatever support he had with the Republican Party, such as organisations to bring people out to vote, it’s pretty hard to come back from this. But, people have been saying that about him weekly. We don’t know, but it does hurt his organisation.”
If the election was held immediately, who would win?
"The polls highly favour Clinton winning, particularly in the swing states because she’s ahead by a lot on the east coast. Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia are no longer in play for Trump which narrows the potential for him to win."
