Clinton jabs Trump: How much will it matter?

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. – Forget those snap polls taken minutes after the last word was spoken, the ones that declared Democrat Hillary Clinton "won" Monday night's first presidential debate.

Sure, she pricked Donald J. Trump with ego-deflating attacks on his business skills and preparation to be president. He took all the bait she offered. He bellowed, groaned and sighed. By the end of the 95 minutes, he was pouting.

But it is going to take several days, as the debate percolates through the political ecosystem, to find out whether it will arrest Trump's recent polling surge and shift momentum. History shows debates rarely shake up the underlying dynamics of a presidential race, and both candidates have hardened (and mostly negative) images with voters.

After a mistake-prone August, Trump restructured his campaign and turned into a more disciplined candidate, enough to catch Clinton in national and several battleground-state polls. The former secretary of state, meanwhile, suffered through one of the worst stretches of her campaign, when she was less than transparent about her health and faced new questions about special access for donors to her family's charitable foundation.

"She certainly has put a brake on the angst Democrats have been feeling for the last couple of weeks – 'Hillary's got this,' " said Daniel F. McElhatton, a Philadelphia-based Democratic strategist. "We can calm down a bit."

Yet Trump probably didn't hurt himself with his base, he said. "He's not bleeding anywhere; his voters are locked in," McElhatton said. Trump's performance may not have helped him appeal to groups that have been resistant to him: moderate suburban voters and college-educated white men.

Debate season appears to offer an opening for both candidates to make a move. A third of voters in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll said the presidential debates will be very important in helping them make a final decision, a higher-than-normal percentage. Some groups said they were more open to persuasion than others.

For instance, 49 percent of Latino voters said the debates could influence them, as did 44 percent of voters now supporting Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, 42 percent of African American voters and 39 percent of voters aged 18 to 34.

At the beginning of Monday's debate, Trump laid down a strong attack on Clinton's effectiveness during more than a quarter century in public life, saying she had few accomplishments to match her lofty goals.

"You've been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now?" Trump said. He noted that her husband, President Bill Clinton, approved the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade pacts. He derided her for flip-flopping on a proposed agreement with Asian nations, moving from support to opposition during the campaign.

And Clinton took aim at the heart of Trump's political success, the idea that he is a champion of the working class. First, she blasted him for not releasing his tax returns and speculated it might be because he had avoided paying federal income tax for many years using loopholes. And she attacked his record of "stiffing" workers and contractors, sometimes when his companies filed for bankruptcy, and, in other instances, simply refusing to pay bills.

"I've met dishwashers, painters, architects, marble installers, drapery installers, who you refused to pay when they finished the work you asked them to do," Clinton said. "We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses at one of your golf courses. It's a beautiful facility. It immediately was put to use. And you wouldn't pay what the man needed to be paid, what he was charging you to do."

Trump probably didn't help his cause with this quip: "Maybe he didn't do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work."

So now this unusual campaign lurches into its last six weeks, with more possible volatility in the offing.

Pollsters and strategists know that maybe 20 percent of voters are not committed to anybody. Some are truly undecided, and others are backing third party candidates like Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein but are not firm in their choice. A few say they're disgusted and may not vote at all.