Thursday night at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennesse, witnessed the final showdown between US President Donald Trump and his Democrat challenger Joe Biden. The US is just 11 days away from election day. 

The debate was moderated by NBC News’ Kristen Welker and was in sharp contrast to the first one in September that had plunged into chaos, which many believed was a result of a mute control button that organisers introduced this time to maintain order. In contrast to the first debate, one heard words such as ‘May I’, ‘Excuse me’, ‘please… can I add to that.’ 

Meanwhile, some of the US’s top political strategists and other observers noted that Trump’s effort of demonstrating greater discipline was too little and too late in the presidential race to lift his chances for re-election.  

Mathew Dowd, a former top aide to President George W Bush said on ABC News that Trump was not “a bull in a china shop. That does not mean he won the debate.”

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He said that the US President needed a breakthrough to overcome former vice president Joe Biden’s lead in the national polls, which did not happen during the course of this debate. Down on Twitter wrote that Biden had a “lead going in and has a lead leaving.”

Charlie Cook, the editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said that Biden’s leading the national polls by such large numbers that Trump’s campaigns were probably limited by Biden’s even performance, New York Times reported. 

Although, many praised Trump for his behaviour at the debate, where he did not interrupt. Some Republican strategists liked Trump’s response to the coronavirus across the US. Ari Fleischer, a former aide to Bush said “Trump is right about learning to live with the virus,” New York Times quoted. She said many Americans would find something more hopeful in the president’s message versus the ‘pessimism’ in Biden’s words on the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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“Biden talks bailouts and shutdowns — Trump talks reopening. That’s a good contrast for the president and he should hold this fight here,” Brad Todd, a Republican strategist said, NYT quoted. 

However, Tony Fratto, who had worked for the Bush administration said that by continuing to press the fact that young people are less likely to die from COVID-19 “will not help to close that gap with old people.”

On Trump’s pandemic dealing and his debate behaviour, Tim Miller, a Republican strategist who is supporting Biden, said, 

“Was the president’s task there to convince Americans he has a plan to deal with this pandemic or to convince Americans that he can behave like a good boy for 4 minutes? Because it was a whiff on the first one,” the New York Times quoted.