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Debate Takeaways: Donald Trump Had a Lot to Do, and He Didn’t Do It

Last chance, no backsies. The third and final presidential debate, held in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, was the last real chance for either Hillary Clinton or Donald J. Trump to shift the momentum of the 2016 campaign. Wherever the race is now, it is highly likely to stay that way for the next 19 days. So what happened? Check out our takeaways.

Republicans despondent that Trump threw away final debate

Donald Trump’s rocky performance on the final debate stage did little to allay his party’s concerns that the GOP is headed for an electoral catastrophe up and down the ticket.

In interviews with over a dozen senior Republican strategists, not one said Trump did anything to change the trajectory of a contest that is growing further out of reach.

A focus group led by veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz gave Donald Trump a slightly higher rating on Wednesday night when asked who won the third and final presidential debate.

Luntz hosted a group of 26 undecided Nevada voters at the debate in Las Vegas, where Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off for the last time before voters cast their ballots on Nov. 8. At the end of the 90-minute spectacle, 14 voters said Trump came out on top while 12 voters thought Clinton scored a victory.

Trump has a strong start in the debate — and then a killer mistake

When the final presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump started, it seemed as if it might be the best of the three and certainly Trump’s best. By the end, it was the story of Trump in Campaign 2016 in microcosm, a series of angry exchanges, interruptions, insults that served to undercut the good he might have accomplished earlier.

Presidential Debate: What to Watch For

Much can happen in politics over three weeks, and this election has been full of surprises. But by lashing out at the news media; criticizing Speaker Paul D. Ryan, his party’s highest-ranking official; and claiming without evidence that the electoral system is “rigged,” Mr. Trump appears less intent on finding a path to victory than on grasping for scapegoats to explain away an eventual loss.

Donald Trump would need to stage a historic comeback to win the White House in 20 days as key slices of the electorate drift away from his candidacy, according to the latest Bloomberg Politics national poll.

Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Trump by 9 percentage points in the survey of likely voters, taken after a leaked video prompted a series of women to come forward alleging the Republican made unwanted sexual advances.

The fundamental question in Wednesday’s debate is whether Donald Trump gets a third chance to convince Americans he is a plausible president. Trump’s people believe he has such a chance, that a large group of voters will be open-minded all the way to Election Day. But the polls suggest he has an impossible job ahead.