Melbourne University School of Social and Political Sciences academic Dr Raymond Orr spoke to SBS News and dissected the third and final presidential debate.
Who won the third presidential debate?
“Donald Trump benefited from lower expectations, but he did not do what he needed to do to change very many opinions. It was a better performance but not enough.
"It‘s not quite saying who won or didn’t win, but it was the best performance from both candidates, but not enough to change anything."
What did you notice about each candidate during the debate?
“It was very much like the first debate, Trump was able to behave himself and act more presidential for the first 15 minutes. [He did] a better job overall, still stronger than Clinton on the need for change, but also hit marks when it came to immigration and foreign policy. That said, he continually did himself a disservice by sniping and picking on Clinton, and also interrupting her. That doesn’t really work for changing many people’s minds.
"Clinton was still consistent, clearly a multi-decade politician and had a certain kind of endurance that was impressive."
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What were the most significant topics discussed?
“It went back to the 1980s, 1990s playbook of cultural wars, and abortion even came up. These are things that haven’t necessarily been talked about much in previous debates. It was surprising how ardent Trump was for being anti-abortion. In the past he has been pro-choice, and that was a bit surprising.
“He really does have to sure up his base if he’s going to have any chance at making it close. That means sending signals to people who are able to tolerate a lot of his other bad behaviour. The other big issues were immigration and refugees."
With Hillary Clinton ahead on the polls, what can Trump do to turn the tide?
“Probably nothing outside of a disaster for Clinton. It’s going to be very hard. He has to hope that her supporters just don’t get to the polls in a number of states. His shot at winning the election is pretty unlikely and absurd at this point. There’s not much he can really do except for getting his people to the polls and hope that her's don’t. The United States is a voluntary voting society, so it’s not compulsory like it is here in Australia.“
This week Donald Trump claimed the election process was 'rigged', and geared towards a Clinton win. What were your thoughts on those claims?
“We have not seen this before the election and Trump meant two different things, whether he articulated it or not.
"One, that the media is against him, which he might have a little bit of a point there. And two, that there might be some sort of voting fraud.
“You saw the old mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani saying that dead people vote Democratic. We have seen people after they have lost claim that it was rigged. It goes way back to Andrew Jackson [in 1824] and essentially the election was stolen even though he won the popular vote. Jackson ran again four years later and won.
"The other model was [2000 presidential candidate] Al Gore, who claimed in a certain sense that it was rigged retrospectively. He then disappeared for the most part and won a Nobel Peace Prize.
“There’s going to be 25 per cent of the population that’s just not going to like it when Hillary Clinton is the commander-in-chief and the president. The question is whether a more palatable form of Donald Trump - an economic one - will come out of the Republican Party [in future] and have the upsides, and not the downsides, that he did."
If the election was held today, who would win?
“Hillary Clinton would win, not just because she’s been a more consistent candidate or about her experience, stronger campaign or organisation, but because Democratic presidential candidates have a big advantage over Republicans in terms of the demographic changes in American society. Since 1988/89, a Republican president has only won the popular vote once, and that was in 2004 [George W Bush].
“So there’s a large structural issue with Republican electoral success at the presidential level. One level, demographic changes. Another level, better campaigning - and all of these go for Hillary Clinton."
Has this presidential race been detrimental, or beneficial, to international perceptions of the US?
“There are a lot of things to criticise about American presidential politics right now. Two very unpopular candidates have emerged to be successful out of their parties. If the Republicans had a different selection process, or came to a different decision, they would have a chance.
“What we do with the 25 per cent that are committed to a particularly paranoid view of American society that [follow] Donald Trump’s orders? Whether or not their criticisms in that population are taken seriously, and their grievances - which a lot of it is legitimate - are heard?
"That makes it a difference in whether or not this was a healthy exercise or not when we look at it in five to 15 years.
“From the perspective of Australia - who does a lot of trade with China - you want Hillary Clinton to win so there’s no retreat from economic globalisation. It would be interesting to see whether or not these trade deals get renegotiated when Hillary Clinton wins."
