Post debate analysis...

Win lose or draw? The debate was as much about demeanor as subject matter.

Obviously the first debate was fought like a drunken bar brawl. While both candidates pulled many of the same stunts, the bulk of the coverage was on the President's behavior and he seemed to take a hit. This debate was more traditional in the sense that both candidates were allowed to talk without interruptions and to the degree that there was open mic banter, it was fairly respectful in comparison to debate one. 

The question becomes, was there anything about this debate that could have "moved the needle". To those regards, I would offer that to the extent that the needle moved, that it probably just moved back. 

In other words, to the degree that the President may have "lost" potential voters from the first debate, then he probably gained them back after this debate. To be clear, it's fairly obvious that anyone wishy washy enough to be easily swayed by debate one will be just as easily swayed by debate two. Probably the one major theme about last night's debate was that Trump was more "Presidential" than he was in debate one, which seemed to have played very well with the various focus groups that were being held.

There wasn't any real gotcha moments and neither candidate landed any sort of knock out blows. I personally believe that spending a half hour on Covid was both beating a dead horse and a gift to Biden. To the degree that we have been through two debates where the moderators ignored the subject of the President being nominated for multiple Nobel Peace Prizes for multiple successes in foreign policy was blatant omission and another gift to Biden. The fact that these moderators believed that Mideast or Eastern European peace is less important than tin foil hat conspiracies about Russia is fairly scary. 

If there was something substantial here, it was the fact that Biden openly stated that he would phase out oil and gas. This will most certainly cost him votes in blue collar states that rely on this. This will be deja vu all over again for people who watched these jobs go away under Obama, watched many of them come back under Trump, only to hear Biden tell them that they will go away again if he was elected. 

On a lesser note, the concept of a pathway to citizenship might poll decently, but it will not move votes in favor of Biden. If illegal immigration is a powerful issue for you, then you are likely for more border security, less illegal immigration, and you probably don't want 11 million more illegals becoming citizens overnight. Those who like the concept of feeling good about the idea of a pathway to citizenship probably have way more other important issues in their rainbow colored wish bag. 

I wish I could give a solid prediction as to how this will affect things, but that is hard to do when you have little trust that we still have any accurate way to measure these things. My gut tells me that Trump has a bit of momentum right now and that the debate didn't do anything to halt that. But history tells us that these polls will likely close these last few days either way and that this may not be as much a reflection of momentum as it is just a polling correction.