CLEVELAND, Ohio - With polls nationally and in battleground states showing the race for president a dead heat, Monday night's debate - the first between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump - was the biggest test yet in a blockbuster election year.

For the tens of millions of Americans watching the faceoff, televised live from Hofstra University, this was a chance, finally, to evaluate the candidates side-by-side.

Clinton came into the debate with sky-high expectations, raised by her decades in public service and by Trump's inexperience. But that lack of political seasoning has served Trump well with voters drawn to an outsider, and many of his loyal fans might not be swayed by a showing in which he clearly was out of his depth.

Even so, Clinton scored more points than Trump did.

We began the evening with three questions:

1. Which Trump - pugnacious or presidential? - would show up?

2. Would Clinton be able to effectively prosecute her case, rooted in Trump's affinity for offensive remarks, his aversion to facts, and his unpredictable temperament?

3. And would Lester Holt, the NBC Nightly News anchor pressed into the thankless duty of moderating this first showdown, embrace a role of real-time fact-checker? (The Clinton camp hoped so, for obvious reasons. Team Trump preferred a hands-off approach.)

At last, we have some answers. A few more questions, too.

1. Trump was not quite as pugnacious as he was during the GOP primary debates. And though "presidential" is in the eye of the beholder, Trump gave those watching plenty to ponder.

Is it presidential to repeatedly interrupt your opponent and talk over her as she's trying to answer a question? Trump did that, coming off awfully defensive in the process. Is it presidential to say Clinton, the first woman to earn a major party's nomination for president and a former U.S. secretary of state, doesn't have the stamina to lead? Trump did that when asked by Holt what he meant earlier this month when he said Clinton didn't have a "presidential look."

The New York real estate mogul had his best moments in the opening minutes, when he emphasized his opposition to foreign trade deals - a calling card of his campaign. But when Clinton attacked his business practices, which she described as an affront to the working-class, Trump interjected by seeming to congratulate himself for his shrewdness. And speaking of stamina, Trump appeared to lose steam as the 90-minute debate entered its final laps.

Some might be tempted to grade Trump on a curve because he didn't do anything totally outrageous. But this is the same Trump who burst on to the political scene by questioning whether Barack Obama, the nation's first black president, was a legitimate U.S. citizen. This is the candidate who once characterized most Mexican immigrants as rapists or otherwise violent criminals. The candidate who has made crude remarks about women. Who belittled John McCain, a prisoner of war, for being captured. Who mocked a disabled man.

It was up to Clinton to call attention to these wrongheaded moves - and yes, you can objectively call each of those things wrong, based on facts and common decency.

2. So was Clinton up to that task? Yes.

Talk to any casual observer, and you're likely to hear, "I hate them both." Clinton's problems to a large degree are that so many view this election as choosing the lesser of two evils, and that she is having trouble convincing these voters that Trump's flaws are demonstrably worse.

But Clinton turned the one portion of the evening that could have turned into a disaster for her - a question about her irresponsible email practices while secretary of state - into a quick moment of contrition. And that was the end of it. She frequently had Trump on the defensive.

When Holt asked Trump to explain his persistent embrace of birtherism, the erroneous suggestion Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, the Republican stumbled. Clinton turned it into an opportunity to hit Trump for engaging in "a long pattern of racist behavior." She later questioned Trump's temperament.

Clinton also was able to make a positive argument for herself by showing stronger command of the issues than Trump and by speaking in more than just stump speech sound bites. At one point she boasted that she had prepared for this debate - and had prepared to be president.

No one could argue with her on the first point.

3. Holt had some good moments.

He didn't quite embrace the role of real-time fact-checker. And for long stretches of the debate he probably should have been more of a referee to keep the candidates on topic. But Holt also asked some provocative questions designed to pin down Trump on some key issues.

Holt, for example, pressed Trump on the birther claims. And Holt called Trump on a lie.

"Wrong!" Trump interrupted as Clinton asserted - accurately - that he initially supported the war in Iraq. Holt didn't let him off as easily as NBC colleague Matt Lauer did at a forum earlier this month. He began his next question by stating as fact that Trump had supported the war.

Trump responded, unconvincingly, by accusing the mainstream media of lying.