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So I’m not sure a poor debate showing will make much difference. What does it mean to “win” a debate, anyway? The only meaningful definition is, not who the press thinks won, or even who the public thinks won, in the sense of how they answer a pollster when asked, but whose performance translates into an increase in the number of voters willing to mark their ballot for them. So while 62 per cent of those surveyed told CNN’s pollster they thought Clinton won the debate, to 27 per cent for Trump, we shall see what that turns out to mean in terms of public support.

There is a correlation, as the noted number-cruncher Nate Silver has found: a gap of 35 percentage points in the who-won score would be expected to correspond to a four-point bump in the polls. But the data is, as Silver says, “noisy,” meaning the correlation is a loose one, with plenty of outliers. And there’s ample reason to think this election does not fit the usual template.

Who, after all, are the voters who remain to be persuaded? What sort of voter is still wavering between Trump and Clinton? I know they exist — the gap between the two candidates has opened and closed by five or six percentage points several times — but they must be an especially confused bunch. “I’m undecided: on the one hand, I kind of want a candidate who is knowledgeable, experienced and sane; on the other hand, maybe I want a candidate who is ignorant, unqualified and out of his mind. Toss a coin, I guess.”

How to reach those voters must baffle the sharpest political minds. One is reminded of the challenges facing those running against Rob Ford. What lines of argument will register with the sort of voters who, by their willingness to vote for a Trump or Ford, have signalled their imperviousness to any of the traditional criteria of eligibility? That they are personally unfit for office? That their policies make no sense? That they lie all the time?