A fair number of incumbent presidents have performed better in second debates after struggling in the initial bout, and Trump was really no different. However, his first debate performance got a pretty poor reception from voters, so this was a low bar to clear. Perhaps more importantly for the state of the race, though, I'm not sure if anything happened in this debate that will be on the news in 48 to 72 hours. All in all, that's a net win for Biden, who has a big lead in national polls and a healthy edge in many key battleground states. If this debate didn't change that trajectory, it's going to get tougher for Trump to find a way to narrow the margins in this race and give himself a better shot of pulling off what would be an upset victory.