Biden and Trump’s Final Debate: Who Won?

Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for the second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers pick the winner and then rank the victory on a scale of 1 to 10: 1 means a very narrow win; 10 means a blowout. Here’s what our columnists and contributors thought of the debate.

Who won and why

Jamelle Bouie To some degree Biden’s win is automatic because he didn’t fail or slip up. In the absence of anything that could move the race in a major way, Biden — who leads by an average of around eight points — is the winner. But Biden’s win is also a function of a solid performance focused on real issues, in contrast with the president’s decision to spend most of the debate on the deep lore of the Fox Cinematic Universe.

Elizabeth Bruenig A tie. Supposing we ever return to some kind of civic equilibrium, this debate should be used to teach school children about legitimation (the act of providing legitimacy) crises. Neither Biden nor Trump spent much time asserting the good of their respective philosophies, because persuasion isn’t really on the table. Instead, they disputed assertions of fact. Since the right and left no longer agree on what institutions or figures should be seen as authorities on any given issue, there’s no debate there, just an aggressive presentation of two different worlds.

Christopher Buskirk Trump won this debate hands down and he did it by upsetting expectations. In the last debate, Trump was criticized for being too aggressive. Biden gave a solid, if uninspiring performance and didn’t make a gaffe or look old or tired as his supporters feared. This time it was Trump’s turn to do the unexpected, which meant showing a much tamer, more reasonable side of himself while remaining firm and focused on his message.