Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump – who won the US Presidential debate?
Early polls have suggested Clinton has won over voters in the US Presidential debate
HILLARY Clinton appeared to have snatched victory from Donald Trump in the first US presidential debate last night, early polls suggest.
Clinton also called into question Trump’s alleged sexist remarks about women, reminding the audience at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York of him previously calling women “pigs” and other derogatory names.
Her stinging attack came as the rivals shouted back and forth at each other throughout the debate.
Both repeatedly accused the other of being unfit to serve as president and called into question the other candidate’s record on security, employment, race issues and gun crime.
Early polls released this morning suggest Clinton was the clear winner of last night's debate.
A CNN/ORC snap poll revealed that 62 per cent of respondents felt Clinton won and 27 per cent believed Trump was the winner.
Investors also seemed to sway towards Clinton after Asian shares recovered from an early bout of nerves while the Mexican peso surged this morning.
Her chances in the November 8 election also improved on online betting markets.
Clinton has been sliding in the polls over the past few weeks and the race has grown uncomfortably close for Democrats who were expecting a landslide just over a month ago.
Supporters are now hopeful the 68-year-old will gain points from her debate performance in the polls - especially as early voting is underway in some states.
But experts are sceptical because after Mitt Romney demolished President Obama in their first debate, he won all the early polls.
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Not many people could make themselves heard in a room with Trump but Clinton repeatedly delivered blow after blow to the reality TV star.
Despite Trump interrupting her 51 times compared to her 17 times, Clinton appeared to emerge victorious according to American voters.
The 100 million people watching around the world seemed to back Clinton too.
Wang Pei was watching the debate from a cafe in Beijing. He said: "I personally like Trump's character and the feeling that he's a fighter. But from today's performance, I think Clinton was more like a mature politician and Trump looked a bit like a misfit in this kind of setting."
Milton Gan, a Sydney-based photographer, said it seemed like Trump was trying to rein in his temper for the first 15 minutes, then went off the rails.
"He started interrupting Clinton, he started interrupting moderator Lester Holt and he started steamrolling. And you could see he was just getting really irate about everything," Gan said.
"The most ridiculous thing was at the end when he said he had the better temperament to be president," Gan said. "It was just hilarious. ... But at the same time, underlying all of this is the fact that there's a really serious world leader's position at stake and he's one of the contenders. And it's pretty scary."
Last night's first tug-of-war between the candidates saw Clinton brand her rival a racist and sexist during brutal exchanges.
In a furious exchange about racial healing in America, Trump was asked about his role in perpetrating the "false claim" that Obama was born abroad.
The billionaire changed his mind earlier this month and said the President was born in the US after questioning his citizenship for five years.
Clinton blasted: "He tried to put the whole racist birther lie to bed. But it can't be dismissed that easily.
"He has really started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen. There was absolutely no evidence for it. But he persisted."