Millions of Americans remained glued to their television screens last Monday, watching their two presidential candidates battle it out in the first debate of this election season at Hofstra University. The tension was palpable, there’s no doubt the majority of America is dissatisfied with the two front runners to the White House. This first debate always remains crucial in cementing the public’s interpretation of each candidate. The victor also gets a head-up in the polls, which is especially significant in this year’s election. According to CNN, The Washington Post, NPR, and yours truly, Hillary Clinton emerged victorious this Monday night, and continues to lead in the polls.

Hillary’s leg-up in the debate began with her subtle intimidation technique. Intimidating your opponent has been a significant part of presidential debates ever since Nixon and Kennedy faced off in the first televised debate in 1960. Kennedy, who was said to have won the debate, intimidated Nixon by pretending to not know who he was beforehand. Nixon was frustrated, as he and Kennedy had worked together in Congress for many years, which threw him off his game. Hillary performed a tactic similar to Kennedy’s. Throughout the debate, she referred to her opponent as Donald, while he referred to her as Secretary Clinton (and don’t tell me it’s because he respects her and her previous role in the government, everyone knows Trump’s track record with respecting women is weaker than his policies). Her referral of him by his first name could be interpreted as her lack of respect for him, and how she was almost talking-down to him. The split-screen also revealed Hillary to be  laughing whenever Donald Trump spoke, which clearly angered him. He began to raise his voice slightly and it was blatant that he was infuriated.

Hillary also left more of an impression with the younger demographic Monday night. Her little “shimmy” after Trump’s claim that her temperament was much worse than his resonated so much with voters, a song was even made about it. Telegraph.co.uk went as far as to say the “Hillary Shimmy” was THE next viral dance move. Trump continually interrupted Clinton with one word: “wrong.” At one point in the debate, Hillary looked straight into the camera, clearly exasperated. This triggered internet memes and posts comparing Hillary to characters on The Office. The “Hillary Shimmy” song goes, “He keeps on shouting, ‘wrong,’ so I’m gonna get my Jim Halpert on,” as the character Jim Halpert was notorious for looking straight into the camera on The Office.

Overall, Clinton’s characteristic preparedness and grooming as a politician prompted her victory over her unqualified, pompous, and rather controversial opponent, Donald Trump. Hillary emerged to be the more qualified and presidential candidate at the conclusion of Monday night’s debate.

Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton partook in a fiery debate on Monday, September 26, at a crucial crossroads in the race to the White House. Trump and Clinton were dead even in polls, and the electoral math favored Clinton by a mere three electoral votes, a razor thin edge.

So when 100 million viewers (and voters) tuned in to watch them battle in one of the most highly anticipated presidential debates ever, the stakes could not have been higher. Both candidates had the chance to make their case to the American public.

But who emerged victorious?

Perhaps it would help to start by defining the parameters of “victory.” Does victory mean defeating your opponent on policy matters? Does it mean lying less? Or does it mean making more of an impact with voters?

If victory is defeating your opponent on policy, then there really is no victor, because though both candidates at times brought up policies, discussion about them was vapid rhetoric. Some will say that Clinton’s policies were stronger, some will say the opposite, but this was no academic dialectic about the true merits of policies.

If victory is telling less lies, then Clinton emerges the victor. Fact-checkers catalogued a litany of lies from Donald Trump, but it’s not as if Clinton stands a paragon of truth herself.

But if victory is defined as making an impression on voters, then there is a case to be made for both candidates, the stronger of which is for Trump. Right-leaning pundits expecting a tempered, knowledgeable Trump were disappointed, as were left-leaning pundits expecting a new Clinton to invigorate voters and alleviate her trust issues. The candidates the American public saw in the primaries are the same ones that showed up on the debate stage. Partisans aren’t going to suddenly change sides after this debate. Undecided voters, however, could only be undecided at this point in the race if they were not informed enough to make a decision prior. If they were not informed before, then they certainly are not the kinds of voters to fact-check either candidate; the only fact checking they had was that of the candidates and the moderator.

These voters, who, this election cycle, make up an abnormally large segment of the electorate (as high as 20% this year, which is more than double that of 2012 at this point) are susceptible to the kinds of tactics Trump is using. His delivery of memorable zingers (“I’ll release my tax returns when you release the 33,000 emails you deleted”) is more likely to make an impact on these uninformed, undecided voters than the steady, dry policy-oriented performance Clinton delivered. At the same time, he convincingly, if not necessarily accurately, defended himself from attacks about the Iraq war or the birther issue. It doesn’t matter if these defenses were factual or not, because anyone who makes up their mind based on things as petty as the muddled history of one’s prior support for the Iraq war (Clinton’s and Trump’s alike) is not going to verify the allegations and accusations of the candidates.

The idea that Trump’s inherent flaws, such as his thin skin, brash outbursts, and tendency to interrupt Secretary Clinton would alienate independent and undecided voters is balanced by the inherent flaws of Clinton, her nature as an insider in politics, her trust issues, her lack of authenticity. A voter who is undecided, who is put off by Trump’s core flaws, would be put off by Clinton’s core flaws as well. A voter who is not put off by one candidate’s inherent flaws is not undecided. These voters are likely to turn to third party candidates, such as Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party. Increased third party turnout is a boon for Trump, because both third party candidates statistically take more votes from Clinton than Trump. Additionally, they lower his threshold for victory; his high “floor” of voters (his energized base) would need less swing voters to win a plurality if there is strong third party turnout.

Finally, in every poll conducted which asked which candidate won the debate, Trump won every single one by solid margins except one conducted by CNN. In 2008, the media was ready to call the debate for vice Presidential candidate when polls showed that the other was favored by the people, prompting the media to change their tune. A similar phenomenon might occur this year.

So while partisans vehemently maintain that their candidate was right, undecided voters were probably more affected by Trump, or alienated by both candidates, leading them to third parties, which is a phenomenon that helps Trump. In the end, Trump emerges the stronger candidate following Monday’s debate.