One way to look at Monday's night presidential debate: Both candidates were speaking, time and again, to marginal voters. Specifically, to young Americans, and for a considerable time to young black Americans in particular, people who may or may not choose to vote, may choose to vote for a third- or fourth-party candidate or may (Democrats hope) turn out to vote in large numbers for Hillary Clinton. Clinton's strategy of replicating the 2012 Obama 51 percent majority requires high turnout among groups that over history have had a low propensity to vote — blacks, Hispanics, young people. Trump's strategy, given his unpopularity with young voters, is to deter them from voting for Clinton, especially considering that the black and Hispanic percentages among young people eligible to vote is higher than those percentages among older people.

"She's been doing this for 30 years," Trump said near the beginning of the debate, while talking about trade. The number's not quite accurate: Clinton has been a national figure for only — only! — 25 years, since Bill Clinton began running for president in 1991, but she was also, as speakers at the Democratic National Convention mentioned over and over, a public policymaker starting at least when Bill Clinton was first elected governor in 1978, 38 years ago. "And Hillary, I'd just ask you this," Trump said some minutes later. "You've been doing this for 30 years." There's no clear antecedent for "this" — Trump was riffing about energy, debt, trade — but the point was made again. He even lapsed into absurdity — "You've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life" — which is impossible because the Islamic State didn't exist for most of that time. Much later in the debate, he chimed in on ISIS. "So she talks about taking them out. She's been doing it a long time." And near the end of the debate, he chimed in, "Hillary's has experience, it's bad experience."

Trump also went after her on flip-flopping, which is to say, sincerity. He brazenly predicted that she would push the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement she's currently and then recalled, accurately, "You called it the gold standard of trade deals." Young people, it seems safe to say, value sincerity and dislike candidates who switch positions for political reasons.

Trump missed a chance to skewer Clinton for her secret email server in response to a question on cybersecurity, but earlier, when moderator Lester Holt (otherwise mum on the emails) asked her to respond to Trump's mention of them, he said, "That was more than a mistake. That was done purposely. OK?" At which point he repeated the previous two sentences. "When you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the Fifth so they're not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the Fifth, I think it's disgraceful."

So on three critical characteristics Trump tried to get across the message that Clinton is antique, expedient and dishonest — qualities that young people presumably abhor. He underlined the concerns that have young people in some target state polls casting more than 20 percent of their votes for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein or no candidate rather than the Democratic nominee.

How did Clinton try to appeal to young voters? Near the beginning of the debate, as part of a laundry list of policies supported by many Democrats, she called for "paid family leave, sick days" and "affordable child care and debt-free college." She echoed the call for "debt-free college" later but did not describe her plan, adapted from Bernie Sanders' proposal, in any detail. Later, in listing her "plans," she said, "We also have to look at how we help families balance the responsibilities at home and the responsibilities at business." Not all these concerns are shared by many young people, especially those who are marginal voters. Not all want to go to college. The percentage of Millennials who are married is lower than it was of previous generations and most unmarrieds are not in the market for child care. By no means do all have jobs. It's not clear that the policies will help them.

She also attacked Trump for positions and statements presumably unattractive to young people. She charged that "Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpretrated by the Chinese" — a slight alteration of a Trump tweet. And at the end of the debate Lester Holt asked a question that gave her a chance to reprise some of the repulsive things Trump has said about women.

"We move into our next segment talking about America's direction," said Lester Holt. "Let's start by talking about race." I don't recall "race" being a subject in any presidential debate in the last four elections (please correct me if I'm wrong), which tells you something about the state of things today.

In response, Clinton echoed the complaints of the Black Lives Matter group: "race still determines too much," there is "systemic racism in our criminal justice system" and "implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police." But she said, "It's really unfortunate that he [Trump] paints such a dire negative picture of black communities in our country." She joined Lester Holt in stating, inaccurately, that stop and frisk has been declared unconstitutional (for once, Trump had his facts straight on this and relayed them clearly). But she also said that police deserve respect and "we do always have to make sure we keep people safe." But the clear thrust of her remarks was in line with that of many protesters and of most black elected Democrats, and she called for federal "retraining" of police. Presumably she did so in the hope of rallying black voters, particularly young blacks, to the polls.

In contrast, Trump talked bluntly about the need for "law and order" and made the point, less clearly than he had at the Republican National Convention, that "the people that are most affected by what's happening" — increasing crime and violent riots — "are African-American and Hispanic people. And it's very unfair to them what our politicians are allowing to happen." He didn't cite the FBI figures released Monday showing murders nationally up 11 percent in 2015 — the biggest annual rise in decades. But he did make specific reference to recent events in Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, New York and Dallas which show some acquaintance with what's going on.

My own sense is that Trump got the better of this exchange. Clinton's stance may gin up black turnout, but it's not likely to rise to the levels of 2008 and 2012 when the first black president was running. And if the Democratic percentage among blacks should fall from the 95 and 93 percent of those years to the 84 and 83 percent Bill Clinton got in the 1990s, that would mean 1 point off Hillary Clinton's percentage nationally and more in target states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. And I'm not sure it helps Hillary Clinton to accuse the 70-plus percent of voters who are white that they have a problem with "implicit bias."

Overall, as I wrote on debate night, I think Clinton won the debate. Perhaps that reflects a professional writer's prejudice in favor of people who speak, more or less, in whole sentences and paragraphs, and prejudice against those who engage in free-form, parenthetical-filled, free-association discourse. Or perhaps a former political consultant's bias in favor of candidates who are well prepared. But on reflection and looking over the transcript, I think Trump did a fairly good job of discouraging marginal voters from voting for Clinton, more than I appreciated as I watched the debate.